


To be continued Part 2

by J_Antebellum



Series: To be continued [2]
Category: Cormoran Strike Series - Robert Galbraith
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-15
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:48:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 31,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28095702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/J_Antebellum/pseuds/J_Antebellum
Summary: Continuation of "To be continued": https://archiveofourown.org/works/14116872/chapters/32527755
Relationships: Robin Ellacott/Cormoran Strike
Series: To be continued [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2058291
Comments: 21
Kudos: 11





	1. Prologue

**Prologue:**

Aiden Leda Strike was born on October 4 th 2012 at 19:20. She was of a normal size, healthy, a strong, energetic girl. Her parents put her on a pretty pyjama onesie and observed her, both stunned and obsessed for her. She had ten fingers and ten toes, was all red like any newborn, and had dark, curly hair, abundant for a newborn but still between normal margins. Her eyes were usually closed, with dark long eyelashes, but in the few times they opened, they seemed blue-gray, her nose a miniature of Robin’s, his lips more like Strike’s, forming a pout as she slept in her mother’s arms, with the same enormous cheeks as she had. It was all chubby, 8 pounds of pure adorableness.

“She’s perfect,” Robin grinned, beaming, as Aiden sucked on her nipple, slowly but steadily learning how to eat, because she was a Strike after all and damn it if that wasn’t something she could master quickly.

“She surely is,” Strike was just amazed at both women of his life and he couldn’t manage to keep his eyes off Aiden’s roundish face as he sat beside Robin on the bed, an arm around her shoulders as he observed with adoration. He had seen Robin use her innate stubbornness, bravery and strength and push a whole person out of her tiny vagina, and he could only hope whatever Aiden did in her life, she was just like Robin in every single way.

They were at the hospital room, both girls had been cleaned and changed into clean, comfortable clothing, and the room had started filling with people crowding to see her, but now at night it was a little bit quieter. The light was dimly, dinner had been eaten, Aiden had woken up from her first long nap, and Robin was starting to feel like she might allow for someone else to hold Aiden after she ate. Strike was in no hurry, he was secretly dreading that Aiden would hate his calloused, hairy hands.

“I could stare at her forever,” Robin whispered, her finger tentatively caressing one of the chubby cheeks. While Strike saw a mini Robin in Aiden, Robin saw a more feminine version of a mini Cormoran. The same round face that she loved, repeated with unscarred, feminine touches.

“Creepy,” Martin snorted a laugh, happily looking at his brand new niece while standing by the bed. Robin didn’t seem to mind, too focused on the baby in her arms to care about nothing else. Aiden squealed squeezing tighter Strike’s finger in her tiny hand and Robin gulped a sob.

“I think she’s done,” Robin smiled, cleaning her nipple as Aiden opened her eyes wide, separating from it and looking around, yawning, milk-drunk. Robin put her t-shirt back in place to cover her boob and moved to handle Strike the baby. “Come on, hold your daughter, daddy.” Strike raised his eyebrows, surprised, and tentatively moved his hands to replace Robin’s. Robin grinned putting one of the baby towels on his shoulder. “She’s got to burp okay?” Strike nodded, afraid of moving much.

However, Aiden looked at him as if saying ‘have some balls, man!’ and Strike finally moved her to his chest, so she’d burp against the towel. He found it easy, with the size of his hands, to hold the entire baby safely, one hand cupping her head and neck and another her arse. Like a monkey, Aiden clung to him with a hand gripping a handful of his chest hair, since the shirt was a bit unbuttoned due to the heat of the room, and Strike moved his face to keep eyes on her. Strike realised he had been holding his breath and he let it go, smiling a little as he patted her back carefully and she coughed and burped, vomiting some of the milk she had just eaten.

“Hey ya...” Strike whispered softly, moving to kiss her forehead. He felt overwhelmed and at the same time, looking at her brought a sense of calmness that he had never felt. Strike slowly stood up so he could bounce her a little, changing weight from one foot to the other and becoming a little boat to nurse her back to sleep once all the gas was out. Robin was right: Strike had never seen a prettier baby, one that didn’t look like a complete alien.

Robin, seeing how he seemed to get ten years younger while holding Aiden, and how Aiden instinctively clung to his warmth, as if she had always known he was her daddy, and no one else, felt herself get emotional and rubbed her eyes, smiling at them.

“I think she likes me,” Strike opined balancing to the sides slowly, standing by the bed.

“Of course she likes you,” Robin replied matter-of-factly. Strike looked at her grinning like he had never seen her, feeling more confident with Aiden in his arms, and Robin grinned big. She knew it was going to be harder than it had been with her to have Aiden change arms.

Strike simply focused on contenting his daughter, observing attentively, with curious eyes, the way in which her eyelashes tried to remain open but eventually, with the warmth of Strike, the stomach full and happy, and the smell of ironed clothes from her father’s shirt, they fell close, her lips pursed. She looked like the most peaceful, innocent being in Earth.

Meanwhile, Linda sat beside her daughter on the space Strike had left vacant on the bed and kissed the top of her head, caressing her hair as Robin observed her newfound family.

“How are you feeling, darling?” Linda asked caringly of her daughter. Robin looked up at her and smiled with a little nod.

“I’m fine, just tired. It was hours to get her out, wasn’t it?” Linda nodded. It had been over five hours since Robin and Strike had left the house to the moment in which Strike had called saying Aiden was born and both baby and mother were perfectly fine.

Robin’s hair fell a little dishevelled over one shoulder, her face a little pale in contrast with her daughter’s, her cheeks a little rosy and her eyes tired and glassy. But she was happier than ever in her whole life, just looking at the man she loved with her favourite creature in the universe, a bit of him, a bit of herself, and the rest just plain Aiden’s. Linda rubbed her back, knowing fully well what giving birth was like, after having birthed four children herself. She was also beaming, finally being a grandmother. Linda had always dreamed of a big family.

“You’ve done very well,” Linda complimented Robin, always encouraging. “Now’s time to rest…” Robin nodded, happy, and looked at Aiden again. She was better than she had been capable of imagining. Lucy was now drooling at her niece standing next to Strike. Her only niece. Lucy had never in her best dreams imagined that Strike would wind up having children, and she had always deplored it, so now she was truly happy. Besides, she didn’t have girls herself –although she had never minded much- so she was going to love doing girly stuff with Aiden.

“Aw, she’s all asleep,” Lucy whispered, endeared, as she caressed Aiden Leda’s cheek with one finger. She skin was soft and warm beneath her finger. “So cute.”

“Sh…” Strike reprimanded, his voice soft and warm like his daughter’s skin, and with a different, more cheerful, tone. “Don’t wake her up, she’s had a rough day coming out of there and all.” Lucy snorted a laugh. It was curious and amusing to see Strike behave towards her as if the one expert in childcare who had successfully grown three children was himself, and not his little sister.

“I’m keeping photographic evidence of Oggy’s softening because no one’s going to believe us later,” Nick whispered as he took pictures with his phone. Ilsa and he had left one-year-old Zahara at his parent’s house to come, thinking that it’d be better if Zahara met her new cousin once they were all comfortable at home. They knew for almost a year the joy of having a daughter, or a child in general, and were feeling so happy just by the knowledge that their best friends, practically brother and sister, had been blessed in a similar manner.

“Should I put her down in the crib?” Strike asked Robin without much visible intention of dropping it. Robin shrugged.

“Nah, let her be. She’s happy there,” said Robin, looking at the little girl, almost fully hidden by Strike’s hand. He nodded, not really thinking of ever letting Aiden anywhere but in his arms, and then continued looking at Aiden. She seemed to have snuck her tiny nose more against his shirt and he carefully moved her a little, afraid that she’d asphyxiate herself.

“How long do you have to stay?” Ilsa asked Robin.

“Should be home tomorrow, possibly after lunch. They want to make sure that she’s all good after such a rocky pregnancy, running more tests in the morning just in case, didn’t they say?” Robin checked in with Strike, who obviously had been more the one the doctor had spoken to since Robin in the meantime was being checked out.

“Yeah, something about that…” Strike wasn’t really paying attention to Robin’s conversation. He hadn’t heard the doctor much either, since he had been more preoccupied about Aiden and Robin than nothing else. He had seen far too much blood come out of Robin and although everyone had assured the amount had been nothing out of the ordinary, Strike never, ever, wanted to see any drop of blood out of Robin. Then he felt a weight under his hand on Aiden’s ass and got a bad smell. Aiden stirred a little, frowning, but didn’t quite get up. “Uh… Robin… I think she’s popped herself.” Robin looked up at him and snorted a laugh.

“Well, change her then,” Robin pointed to the bathroom, where there was a changing table. Robin was amused at Strike’s terrorized face.

“But I’ve never changed a diaper _alone_!” he replied with puppy eyes, making Robin laugh.

“Ugh, sush, I’ll help you,” Lucy pushed him into the bathroom, grabbing clean diapers and a bottle of talcum from their baby bag on the way. Strike carefully put Aiden on the table, and the baby stirred more in all her length and opened her eyes a little, scowling.

“I’m sorry little bird, just gonna clean you up,” Strike kissed her forehead and she closed her eyes again, but still scowled.

“Alright, onesie out,” Lucy instructed. As he did so, the smell became worst and he crinkled his nose, Lucy seemed not to notice the smell at all. “Now, remove the diaper, there…”

“Jesus Christ!” Strike scowled at the smell and the vision of a very disgusting poo. Lucy laughed. “How can something so cute…?”

“Make something so disgusting? Yep, we’ve all been there,” Lucy looked amused. “Now you have to remove the diaper by wrapping it up while getting as much of poo as possible, since the rest you’re going to have to clean it yourself. And you have to elevate her ass by grabbing her ankles and pulling up a little bit to get the ass to elevate, if not you can’t clean it properly… Cormoran not like that for God’s sakes she’s not going to break, pull normally!”

“But have you seen her ankles?” Strike looked at her as if she had suggested to cut Aiden’s throat. “I’m too rough, I’ll hurt her…”

“No, you won’t, she’s strong and all made. Come on, her neck didn’t break coming out of her mother, you’re not going to break her now…”

Slowly but steadily, Strike managed to follow Lucy’s instructions, throwing away the diaper and then cleaning the little ass and all around, making sure it smelled nicely again and looked perfectly washed. He smiled proud of himself, seeing Aiden staring at him with curiosity, her scowl vanishing as she felt herself clean again.

“Now put the talcum…”

“What’s for?” Lucy rolled eyes.

“So her skin doesn’t get irritated. Believe me, you’ll be buying a lot of creams for irritations in her life,” Lucy smiled gently at him, kind of proud. Strike nodded applying a generous amount of talcum everywhere –Lucy had to remove a little bit- and then he expertly put the new diaper. Nick had let him done that part a few times, he knew the drill there. “Good job daddy!” Lucy high-fived him and Strike smiled proudly.

“Now let’s get you all dressed,” Aiden was all awake now, but surprisingly not crying, just observing with the same innate curiosity that both of her parents had, her eyes wide and her mouth salivating as she learned to use her tongue. Strike farted on her belly a little making her wiggle and then put the onesie back on, sliding it over Aiden’s smooth, rosy skin. She was so little next to someone like Strike. When they got back out all successful, Robin had fallen asleep curled up and Strike smiled at her. Aiden looked around from his chest and Strike kissed the top of her tiny head. “Look at that, mummy went to sleep. Maybe you should do the same uh?” he didn’t spoke to his daughter in the classic sharper, silly voice adults normally use with babies, but in his own, just a little softer. It seemed to do the trick.

* * *

**Chapter 1:**

_Five months later_

A cry echoed in the office. Strike turned to look at a little girl sitting there with her full cheeks all blushed and a face of agony. Her hair was as short as it was proper of a baby so young, brown and as curly as a hair so short could be, although Strike had noticed it was way darker when she was born and seemed to be getting lighter over time. As she wailed, sitting on a colourful, soft puzzle carpet, her big blue-gray eyes, same as her mother’s, filled with tears and her pouty lips separated showing her only two teeth. Her small fists suspended in the air, no longer holding the enormous teddy bear her mother had gifted her and that one day long ago Strike had bought for her.

“You are _so_ dramatic sometimes, Aiden,” her father said contemplating the six-months-old child from his desk. He sighed and moved to get the child, bouncing her against his hip. She immediately stopped crying, while her father peppered her head with kisses. “Sorry for that,” he excused to the client waiting on a chair in front of his desk, as he sat back down on his chair, sitting the baby on his lap. “Girl hates it when she can’t have a good look.” He added with a little smile.

Strike’s tired eyes with bags under them observed his client, a middle-aged woman who simply had come to him so he could find her dog. It had been a strange task, but successful nevertheless, and she had just come to give him the final payment and thank him, now that ‘Eddie’ was back at home safe and happy. Her green eyes immediately fixed on Aiden, a baby she had frequently seen behind her father’s chair, playing with her toys and books scattered on the little puzzle carpet as her parents worked, and she smiled warmly.

“Oh, don’t worry, she’s a curious little girl uh?” the woman smiled. Aiden observed her with intensity, her light eyes fixed on her like nails, even if her hands were already busy holding onto Strike’s expensive watch like she had done a thousand times before. Strike nodded with a little smile, keeping his left arm tight around Aiden and patting her head with her right hand softly.

“Detectives’ daughter, you can imagine. Wants to see everything and touch everything,” Strike kissed the top of her head.

The woman laughed softly and after finishing up with Strike, she left the office. Strike sighed leaning back and Aiden observed him, forgetting his watch and grabbing his face. She often held him by the beard, for reasons unknown, and smiled at him. Strike smiled back, forgetting all his worries in one instant. Aiden’s face always reminded him of Robin, the big cheeks, the big blue-gray eyes, the nose, the same kindness for all other beings, the same empathy. One time Robin had cried tragically because of a movie and Aiden had cried too out of pure empathy.

“What do we do now, uh?” Strike asked looking down at his daughter, speaking to her as if she was an adult person, the same way he did with his prosthetic leg. The little girl had started to let her father serve as a nest and was falling asleep throwing her head back against his chest. Strike snorted a laugh knowing he did the exact same thing on the sofa sometimes, Robin always remarked that as much as Aiden might look like her, she had her father’s soul. She even had his same sullen crossness at times, mostly when she had just woken up, but then she laughed like Robin and lighted up the world. “That sounds like fun...” he whispered leaning to kiss her forehead. She smelled of baby and Robin’s perfume and Strike adored it. He carefully manoeuvred Aiden to sit sideways and lean back against his left arm a little, leaving his right arm free to keep working.

Strike wasn’t back home until six, carrying Aiden against his body using a moby wrap, which made him look ridiculously pregnant, but it had been a Christmas present from Lucy and he had to recognize that with his job and the leg having the arms free, even more in case of having to use crutches, was incredibly useful. Strike also hated using the baby carriage in London, with so many multitudes in the metro and everywhere, so it was perfect.

“We’re home,” Strike called as he opened the door, smelling of beef, which made his stomach grumble. Aiden, who had woken up an hour ago, immediately moved like an aerial towards the smell. “Don’t be so greedy, you can’t even munch that yet.” Strike smiled at Aiden, closing the door behind him.

“Hi!” Robin’s steps rushed and she appeared in the hall wearing an apron, slippers, the few extra pounds that she hadn’t managed to get rid of just yet, and a beaming smile, rushing to kiss Strike and then Aiden, who grinned raising her arms towards her mum. “Hello you beautiful, have you been a good girl with daddy?” Robin took Aiden from her wrap and covered her face in kisses. Aiden just smiled, and Strike chuckled. He couldn’t possibly get tired of seeing that.

“She’s been perfect, as always,” Strike said, leaning to kiss Robin again. “We missed you, how was surveillance?”

“Ah, I missed you two too,” Robin smiled with her blue-gray eyes and kissed the top of Aiden’s head as she carried her to the kitchen, Strike following suit. “It went well, then I even got to come, clean around a little and start dinner, how was everything at the office?”

“All right,” Strike nodded, hugging Robin from behind as the strawberry-haired woman flipped the beef in the pan. “That smells to die for, love, thank you.” Robin smiled. She never got tired of Strike’s praises of her hard work, acknowledgment and gratefulness. Then he laughed. “Poor Aiden, she’s drooling, she thinks it’s for her.” Robin snorted a laugh seeing their daughter was in fact leaning towards the beef with dilated pupils and salivating already.

“Aha! The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree isn’t it?” Robin kissed her forehead, seeing a couple freckles on the bridge of her nose already. “I’m sorry baby-girl, but that’s for daddy and mummy... You have some milk and... what did you give her today after I left?” she looked at Strike.

“That orange mush for lunch and a banana for afternoon snacks,” Strike answered. He was as organised with Aiden’s diet as he had been with the schedules in the army.

“A whole banana? Good girl!” Robin kissed Aiden again. “Then we can try a little bit of chicken maybe, cut very, very tiny?” she looked at Strike for confirmation and he nodded.

“I can even pre-munch it like birds do,” Strike suggested, making Robin laugh and shake her head.

The couple sat down for dinner over an hour later with Robin feeding their daughter a bit of milk from her breasts. They gave her a couple little pieces of chicken but decided to stick mostly with breastfeeding, eating themselves the beef as they talked about their current cases and the workday. Conversation occurred easily between them and laughter soon echoed in the small sitting-dining room while Aiden, milk-drunk, fell asleep with the nipple still between her lips. Strike brought the dishes and cutlery to the kitchen while Robin walked upstairs to put Aiden inside her crib by the feet of their bed and Strike joined her in time for a bed time story and a lullaby song. It didn’t matter if Aiden was already asleep, it was tradition to soothe her into the first stages of sleep with their voices.

“One day more of rocking this parenthood thingy,” Strike chuckled proudly putting an arm around Robin’s shoulders and pulling her into his arms for a kiss. Robin smiled into his lips but pulled apart.

“Our series is tonight,” she reminded him. Strike raised his eyebrows and grinned.

“Yay!”

They had started following a detectives’ TV series that the BBC had been doing and they had both gotten quite addicted. It was only once a week so it was one night they agreed to be home on time to watch it, no matter what, snuggled in the sofa together under a blanket. That’s how they were half an hour later, snuggled together with the TV on and their thickest blanket over them. It helped that the series didn’t have advertisement interruptions, so they didn’t lose track of the case.

“It’s going to be the girl with the mole on the cheek, I’m telling you...” Robin whispered under her breath, her eyes fixed on the screen. It was then that the doorbell rang and they pulled apart, exchanging frowns. Strike glared at the hall entrance as if it had insulted him.

“This isn’t hour for visitors,” Strike grumbled, getting up and walking to the door. Looking through the peephole, he saw Wardle and Ekwensi standing there in the darkness. “What the...” he opened the door.

“Night, can we come in?” Wardle looked at Strike. There was something about his seriousness, the way in which his eyes fixed in Strike so meaningfully, and his tone, that petrified Strike inside and he moved aside.

“Did I hear Wardle?” Robin’s voice echoed from the sitting room. Before he had time to answer, Strike was leading Wardle and Ekwensi into the sitting room. “Oh, hi! What’s up?”

“We need to talk with you, Robin,” Wardle said softly, making her scowl.

“Don’t worry, you’ve done nothing wrong, is not that. And no one died or anything,” Ekwensi hurried to add, and Robin’s scowl softened, nodding.

“All right then, please,” Robin motioned to the sofa.

“Can I offer you anything? Water? Cheese?”

“We’re good, thanks,” Ekwensi said with a polite smile, sitting next to Wardle. Strike walked to sit next to Robin. “How’s Aiden?”

“She’s fine, asleep, thanks,” Robin smiled a little. “So?”

“Does the name Logan Trewin say anything to you?” asked Wardle with a serious expression. Robin’s eyes widened briefly and she nodded.

“Of course,” then, seeing Strike’s scowl, she looked at him. “The guy who...” Strike nodded, completing the sentence in his head.

“Mr. Trewin was, as you know, was condemned to life sentence in a top security facility without possibility of being bailed out, parole or anything, in Thorn Cross prison, back in 2004. He had raped eight girls and then you were the ninth, rape and attempted murder. It was you who put him away,” Wardle commented. Robin nodded grimly, she knew the facts. Wardle took a deep breath. “Robin, Mr. Trewin has just escaped prison. An hour ago.”

  
  


  
  


  
  


  
  



	2. A threat to the family

**Chapter 2:**

Robin and Strike’s eyes widened in shock and surprise. Strike instantly moved an arm to hug Robin with it and Robin lost the colour from her face and covered her mouth with her hands.

“What?” Robin said in a very sharp voice.

“He faked to be gravely ill. When he was going to be taken to the ambulance, he managed to break free, kill two guards, and steal the ambulance. Fortunately for the driver, he had just gone out of the ambulance to help out and survived to tell the story. They chased Trewin for thirty-five miles and lost him in Stoke-on-Trent, so we believe he’s coming to London to get you. We did a quick search of your name in Google and as simple as that Denmark’s address pops up, along with an article of a gossip magazine titled ‘Jonny Rokeby’s first granddaughter is born’ informing that you are her mother.”

“What? How in hell did they...?” Strike scowled. He disliked the idea of magazines gossiping of their daughter.

“They always do. At least it lacks a picture, but there are picture of you two together online,” Wardle sighed. “Point is, it’s not safe for your family here. We want to put you under witness protection. We already got agents in your family in Masham’s addresses just keeping an eye out.”

“We believe he might try to kill you or a family member to hurt you,” Ekwensi added. “At the end, it was your testimony that managed to put him away when he was still pretty young, whole life ruined. Now he’s a forty-five-year-old man, he’s done boxing in prison and he’s strong and capable of murdering. Two people are dead, Robin, we don’t want to risk it. All the other victims are being put under witness protection too.”

Robin had stood up, feeling like the room had suddenly gotten very tiny and she was drowning in it. TV turned off, she was left with the silence of her thoughts and as she walked around the room, she loosened the neck of her pyjama t-shirt. Her inferior lip was quivering and her heart felt in the pit of her stomach, her eyes filling with tears she fought not to release as anxiety and anguish took over. She hadn’t realized she had been gasping for air until she felt Strike’s hands tenderly on her upper arms, delicate kisses on the top of her head, and heard his soothing voice.

“Breathe, you’re okay, I’ve got you, love,” she turned around and her horrified expression was met with sullen crossness, his sad eyes looking down at her in concern as his calloused hands reached to cup her face and he pressed a soft feather kiss against her forehead before pulling apart and holding her hands. “Breathe, Robin...” he repeated softly, his eyes fixed on her. She obeyed and took a deep breath, nodding. “We’ll do things whichever way you decide, all right? I’ll support you, I’ll stand by you and I’ll keep you and Aiden safe. It’s going to be all right.” Robin nodded again, and moved to look at the detectives on the sofa.

“It is absurd to hide then,” said Robin, with a security in her voice that she did not feel in her soul. “You said it yourself. He knows where I work, he knows how I look, he knows who my family is. I bet he doesn’t have to dig very deep to find someone who, at least because of our relationship with the Rokebys, knows where we live or who my family is. He will keep finding me time and time again, no matter what.”

“That’s why we want to put you three under witness protection,” Wardle explained. “The Strikes disappear from the map and we find you new identities, new stories, new home, just until he’s caught again. It shouldn’t take much time, half England is looking for him and police is very pissed off at him, not just for attacking nine teenagers but also for the two dead cops. His photo will be everywhere in the news and in every channel and newspaper in the morning, in colour. They’ve also interrogated his family, apparently they rejected him and haven’t heard from him in years but they have eyes on them just in case. Let us hide you all away and protect you, Robin.”

Robin stood in silence for a moment and after a moment of thought, she shook her head. Strike looked at her in silence, waiting for her to decide whatever she thought was best. A tear fell silently down Robin’s cheek before she spoke.

“I won’t hide again, Eric,” said Robin, looking devastated. “That... that _monster_... owned my life for six years, stripped me of my hopes and dreams, my life, the man I loved, my personality, my degree... he took _everything_ away from me that night,” she breathed deeply, another tear falling. “And he locked me in my bedroom for over a year. You know what it is to not go outside your house in eighteen months? I used to _ride horses_ , go running, feel the wind in my skin, go driving... and then everything was _over_ ,” she let a sob escape and she chastised herself rubbing her eyes. She didn’t want to cry like a scared little girl in front of the police. She wasn’t a scared little girl anymore. “I have _everything_ now, my whole life back. I work the job of my dreams, I’ve got the world’s most perfect daughter, and I have this sweet house with a man who truly loves me, the best partner one can have and the best daddy Aiden could ever ask for. I won’t give up all of that now. I won’t let him take my life away, I don’t care if it’s two days or two years, Eric, I won’t do that to myself again and I won’t do it to my baby girl either. He’s angry at me? Great,” she scowled angrily, speaking through gritted teeth, her voice full of emotion. “Because I’m _furious_ at him too. So if he wants to find me, awesome, he can come find me and I will be waiting for him. I will be ready and I will make him _pay_ for all he’s done to us. He’s going to regret the day he put a hand on an innocent person.”

“Robin I get why you want to do this but your daughter’s life at risk...” Wardle tried.

“You do your job right, Eric,” Robin breathed out. “And catch him. I will do my job right and protect my family with the fierceness of a lioness. He’s made a huge mistake pissing off a woman, yes, but he’s made an even greater one pissing off a _mother_. I won’t be underestimated again by that son of a bitch.” Strike breathed in deeply, thinking fast, trying to find a good exit, a good idea.

“It’s your daughter too, you also have a say,” Wardle looked at Strike, trying for him to talk his girlfriend out of her madness. Robin looked at Strike with concern. She cared about his opinion too and she had forgotten now this was _his_ life too, his opinion mattered.

“I’m with Robin,” said Strike finally. “Look Wardle, she’s right. Trewin will find us, he’s smart, he’s skilled, he’s managed to commit eight rapes without getting caught and now he’s free from a top security prison. He’s a murderer and he clearly has well-situated friends. If he wants to get to Robin, he will, and then we have to be ready. Robin and I aren’t the kind to hide, we need to have control of a situation that he’s controlled for far too long and we can’t just trust our security to someone else, and certainly not police, he’s killed two of those already, no offence. If we let someone hide us away, we’ll lose control completely and give it to someone else and then if he finds us? We’ll be taken by surprise and unprepared,” Strike reasoned. He sighed and shook his head. “We’re going to need a gun each, and it would be good to have police patrolling around the office and the house frequently in case he comes around. Robin’s great at body-to-body and I can train her more, we’ll prepare to fight back. If he wants a fight he’ll find a good one.”

When the police left, Strike locked the door behind him, checked on Aiden and came into the sitting room to find Robin with an expression of pure devastation, leaning forward on the sofa, no longer crying, her eyes lost. Strike let a breath out and sat beside her, putting a hand on her knee and giving it a gentle squeeze. Robin looked at him and breathed out, rubbing from her eyes any remains of tears.

“Thank you for supporting me,” said Robin in a whisper. “I know the first instinct is to keep Aiden in a vault.” She added with a small chuckle. Strike cocked his head with a little smile.

“I walk beside you, Robin. Whatever you do I’ll be right there,” Robin moved to kiss him on the lips, a short peck before snuggling into his arms, letting him comfort her with his big strong arms around her and a kiss on her head. “We’ll rest tonight and tomorrow we’ll start trying to find him and training a little.” Robin smiled against his chest.

“Sounds good,” she looked up and caressed his face with appreciation. They locked eyes and he smiled a little.

“It’s a bit scary, isn’t it? Now that Aiden’s around.”

“Yes, but...” Robin sighed. “I also feel more powerful, like I truly am not who I was at nineteen. We’re confronted criminals this bad before, like Laing... Trewin’s the one who should be scared. We’re badass. We always make it through.” She smiled, confident, and he smiled back, nodding.

“Damn right,” Strike kissed her again. “Come on princess warrior, let’s go to sleep.”

  
  


  
  



	3. Sphynx pony

**Chapter 3:**

In the morning, it was time to inform their family and closest friends of what was going on so they’d be careful and keep an eye out of Trewin. Like the police had announced the night before, Trewin was everywhere from first day in the morning, which lead Robin to turn off the TV during breakfast and try not to think about it much. Explaining everyone and hearing their scandalised reactions to their plan was hard enough.

Robin had also had a difficult night, twisting and turning as visions of a man with a gorilla man grabbing her, Strike, or often, Aiden, filled her dreams, but she hadn’t woken up Strike, who usually slept like a bear hibernating. She had limited to snuggle up against him as if he was his huge teddy bear and fall asleep again time after time. However, Strike noticed right away, when he woke up to an empty bed and found Robin already dressed and ready for the day, sitting on the rocking chair breastfeeding a very sleeping Aiden with big bags under her eyes. It was also a telling factor that he hadn’t heard Aiden cry all night, because Robin had been awake to take care of the minor of fusses right away, before it could awake him.

“I called Mr. Crowdy,” Strike informed Robin as she sat with Aiden sleeping between her arms on the sofa, sitting next to her and reaching to kiss her cheek, a hand of his instantly going to cup Aiden’s tiny foot, “to let him know what’s going on so if he goes to the office he does it knowing there could be a murderer going around. We should close the office, put a note saying it’s closed until further notice and call our clients telling them we’ll work their cases from home.” Robin looked at him and then gave a brief nod after a moment of thought. “I’ll get on with it, you and Aiden could take a little nap?”

“Yeah, maybe,” Robin answered holding back a yawn. Strike put his arms around her and she sighed contently resting her temple on his chest and closing her eyes for a minute.

Surveillance that day ran a little bit different from usual, going together the three of them pretending to be just a happy family walking around London as they followed those they had to follow. Very often they could take a picture of their followed by pretending to take a photo with Aiden. After putting Aiden in the care of Ilsa and Nick after lunch, Strike and Robin went to pick up self-defence guns they had convinced Wardle to give them for their protection in case Trewin came around and Strike taught Robin to use her little one in the shooting range, discovering her aiming was actually pretty good. Afterwards they went off to the gym, where Strike started Robin on military combat and trained her to be physically fitter and stronger.

Robin had been excited for it, although she knew the idea of getting aggressive with Strike was disturbing for both of them, but she had ended up exhausted.

“Get up!” Strike shouted at her after the twelfth time Robin went to the ground against a floor of mattresses. They were both wearing plenty of protections for safety –it was the first day after all, and he knew she wouldn’t kick as hard as she could if she was afraid of hurting him- and Robin had hold her own for several rounds without a break, and then as exhaustion took over after over an hour, she started letting vulnerable spots and Strike got her on the ground more than once. “Get up!” he shouted again.

“I’m tired!” Robin knelt on the floor, looking at him with pleading eyes, all sweaty and blushed. “It’s the first day, can’t we take a break?”

“Do you think Trewin is going to give you a break?” Strike hated to be like this with her, and he wanted nothing more than punching himself to death and then hugging her and kiss her and put her in bed to rest, but he knew he needed to be like this if he wanted for her to live if the worst happened or if he could ever not be there. He knelt next to him. “If I was Trewin I would already have had time enough to pound you anywhere I wanted, cum twice and beat you up to death.”

“Corm babe, come on, is the very first day, I need a break...” Robin was ready to cry. They had been fighting for an hour, but previously they had been rocking the machines of the gym for two. Strike had no mercy. “You’re not him...”

“But I could be,” Strike looked into her eyes. His own were glassy seeing her struggle and hating himself for it, and he tried for her to see he hurt too, but did this because he truly had to. “Robin, I’m a decade older than you and my health sucks. One day I might not be there and then you have to protect Aiden and yourself without my help. In real life, a fight has no breaks. No pause for a drink or a pee, you can be dead in an instant, do you understand? And I’m not raising another motherless child. I know you hate this and believe me I hate this twice as much and I hate myself so immensely right now, but I have to find your limits and push you past them to make sure no one can ever beat you up to death. I need for you to become a soldier, not just a warrior. And you still haven’t hit me like you mean it. This is not for fun. This is not a boxing game. This is real life. You think I’m tough? Imagine Trewin, he hates your guts, Robin, he hates you with all of him, he’s as big as me, as much of a closet, he was a boxer too, and he’s a mass of forty-five years old who’s spent ten getting fit in prison, ready to murder, getting stronger, getting with terrible companies. If you fight like this when he comes? You won’t last a second, Robin. That’s the truth. And it’d be a shame when I know how much potential and strength you have right there that you’re refusing to show me.”

“I am exhausted!” Robin shouted at him, gritting her teeth. “I haven’t slept all night, we’ve been at work all morning, we’ve been on this for three hours, I’m about to faint, for fuck’s sakes! You’re being an arse!”

“You know what he will do to Aiden when he’s done with you?” Strike continued, unaffected. Robin’s eyes widened, knelt in front of him. “I’ve seen it, in the army. He’ll rape her, Robin. Do you remember how it felt on you? How painful? Well, Aiden’s way smaller. He’ll rip her in half, Robin. He’ll cause her such a haemorrhage...” his eyes were full of tears just by the thought and Robin let out a sob.

“Shut up!”

“...that she’ll bleed out to death while he grabs her tiny body with his big hands and breaks her bones. And she’ll cry while suffering the most agonic pain until she dies, minutes later.” Strike finished with a shaky voice. Robin was crying now. “Perhaps he’ll leave us alive so we can watch, I’ve seen them do that, the bastards...” he gulped, rubbing his eyes. Then he hated himself more as he continued. “Look at you,” he said with a mock he didn’t feel, “sitting there crying like you’re still just a little girl who fell off the horse. Grow up, Robin. You’re weak. You’re fragile. You survived Laing because you were lucky, but if Matthew had it so easy to almost kill you, and he would’ve if you hadn’t be lucky enough to accidentally call me, you’d be dead. Aiden wouldn’t have existed. Trewin is going to have it fucking easy with how fucking pathetic you...”

Robin’s punch in his throat hit him so hard for one moment he forgot even his name, falling on his back from his seating position in shock as he assimilated what just happened. Robin started crying and leaned over him.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry...” she sobbed out, shattered. Strike coughed and then sat up again, hugging her tightly.

“Don’t be. That’s how you have to punch,” he said hoarsely. “ _That’s_ how you win, my sweet, beautiful love.”

“He’s going to make me a monster...” Robin sobbed, barely understandably, as she shook between his arms.

“No,” Strike kissed her head, crying himself a little. “He’s going to make you a soldier, Robin. As long as you don’t forget why you punch, why you cause harm, you won’t be a monster, love. Remember who the real enemy is... stay kind, stay forgiving... you’re not a monster. You’ll never be... you’re just a mummy.”

Robin cried and cried in his arms and Strike got the feeling that she was crying for the past ten years. Of anger, of sadness, of frustration, of impotence, of everything, until her eyes ran dry and she was ready to fall asleep. Strike left her to shower and went to do the same in the men’s showers, before meeting again with her half an hour later outside the gym. To his own pain, she was pale, her eyes were bloodshot, and her knuckles a bit bruised despite the protections.

“Hey...” Strike said softly, standing in front of her. She looked at him with eyes full of hurt and resentment. “I’m sorry, my love,” he said softly, “I’m so, so sorry... I’m just doing this for you and for Aiden. I’m just trying to help you and I’m so sorry it hurts so much.”

“Is it that bad when they train you for the army?” Robin asked looking broken at him. He shook his head.

“In the army people who’s there fought hard to be there because they wanted to. In the army the person you love the most isn’t the one who’s hurting you or who you’re hurting.” She nodded slowly. “Do you want me to try and cure those wounds? Fights are for the gym... we exist the gym and we can just love each other, right?” Robin leaned against his chest for him to hug her, which he did for a long while.

“I love you more, Corm,” Robin’s muffled voice came after a while.

“What?” Robin pulled apart to look at him with a small smile.

“I love you more now because I know you’re capable of doing something that hurts you so much just to make sure I live. You don’t try to put me down... you try to empower me and make me a better fighter than you. Yes, you hit me... but you hit me to make sure I never have to be afraid of being hit again. And you hit me with protections, without hate, without anger... and wanting for me to hit you hard so you can sleep calm knowing no matter what, I never need anyone else to care for me. That me and Aiden make it out alive. I know how hard it is for you too,” she added with a little sniffle. “I love you more.” Strike smiled a little at her, cupping her face with one hand.

“I only give you what I know you can take, you know?” said Strike. “I _know_ you’re someone Trewin should be scared of.”

“Like if I was six feet three?” Robin asked raising her eyebrows. Strike snorted a laugh and nodded.

“Like if you were six feet three, yes. Now what do you say if we go pick up our melon uh?” he offered her his hand to hold and she nodded, smiling and holding onto him. Robin couldn’t wait to snuggle Aiden in her arms.

It was already dark outside by the time Strike and Robin made it to the narrow Octavia Street, Strike limping heavily and dying to take off his leg, while Robin kept an arm around his hips in case he could use the extra support. When Ilsa opened the main door they got a strong smell of spaghetti carbonara that made their stomachs growl, but before they could run to the food Ilsa was giving it  _the look_ . It was the classic look Strike had long ago identified as the ‘what’s going on?’ ‘I intensely disapprove this’ look. It was the same look Strike had received in many occasions, as when being in Selly Oak Hospital Ilsa had found him smoking in his room, moment at which she had only said ‘give me all of your packs right now and I won’t tell Lucy’.

“Are you okay?” Ilsa finally asked nailing her eyes on them through her lenses. Strike shot Robin a quick look to check she did look better –exhausted and pale, but otherwise like a normal person- and then looked innocently at Ilsa.

“Sure,” said Strike. “Coming for our Sphinx Pony.” Robin widened eyes at him.

“ _Sphinx pony?_ ” Robin repeated. Strike shrugged.

“A hairless pony,” he said matter-of-factly. Robin snorted a laugh and shook her head. Ilsa giggled and moved to hug Robin.

“Looks like you need one,” Ilsa murmured while she hugged her friend. Robin nodded against her shoulder answering with a squeeze and then Robin and Strike were let inside.

Strike stopped to kiss Ilsa’s cheek like usual an followed Robin towards the smell and also towards the toddler giggles, finding Nick sitting on the carpet of the sitting room supporting Aiden on one knee with an arm around her and with year-and-a-half old Zahara sitting in front. He was making faces and doing funny noises and both girls were cracking up.

“Uncle Corm, Auntie Rob!” Zahara beamed running to them and crashing against Robin’s legs. Robin giggled and picked her up, kissing her on the cheek.

“Having fun uh?” Robin smiled. Strike ruffled Zahara’s curls and they went to Aiden, that was raising arms towards them and mumbling something that sounding like ‘mmmmm!’ with urgency.

Strike picked his daughter up from Nick’s arms and accepted a half hug from his friend before focusing on Aiden and covering her in kisses. Robin had dropped Zahara and in no time had Aiden in her arms from Strike and peppering kisses all over her face. Aiden smiled contently, holding onto Robin for dear life.

“She loves you more,” Strike joked with a half laugh. Robin snorted a laugh and hugged Aiden closer.

“How did it go?” Nick asked standing up and looking at them.

“Exhausting,” Robin breathed out.

“Have you got any idea where Trewin is now?” asked Ilsa, scoping Zahara up as the six made their way to the dining room, where the table was already set.

“No,” Strike sighed, flopping on one of the wooden chairs and eyeing the food with gluttony. “Wardle says everyone’s looking for him so it’s a matter of time. I told Shanker to keep an eye out, in case he’s hiding in the darkest holes of London.”

“So he’s here already,” Ilsa looked serious at them while she put some food for Zahara on the high chair’s mini table.

“We think so,” Robin shrugged, adjusting Aiden on her lap to breastfeed her. That was one thing that had become normal in the past six months, pulling out a boob in the middle of whatever, whoever was present, wherever they were. Aiden sucked on her nipple with her father’s appetite. “Another theory is that he’s not actually planning to come here, but we’re pretty sure he’s after Aiden, not even after me... is the worst he could do to me, he knows it.”

“Crazy bastard...” Nick shook his head in repugnance, filling his plate with spaghetti.

“Now that we’re on the topic,” said Strike gulping a mouthful of spaghetti and liking the white sauce off his lips. “Robin and I were just talking on the way here that you both should know we planned all the paperwork in case something happens to us, what happens to Aiden, months ago, and you should know we want you to have her.” Robin nodded in approval, her blue-gray eyes looking up at Nick and Ilsa, who suddenly abandoned their dinner and looked up at them in a mixture of surprise and shock.

“You wanted a family, Zahara and Aiden adore each other and we know,” Robin shrugged, “that you’d be a good family for her. The next best thing and...” Robin took a deep breath, trying not to get emotional. The day had been enough of a rollercoaster. “We get death threats in the office weekly, if not daily, mostly Strike but still. We have shitty pasts, people who hate our guts to death and with our job, we make enemies daily. We always knew there was a high chance something went wrong one day and now... it feels like it could actually happen so, if it does...” she looked down at Aiden, sucking on her nipple. “She’ll be okay with you.”

  
  


  
  



	4. A mother's love

**Chapter 4:**

For a few minutes, nobody spoke and nobody touched their food. It was a silence only interrupted by Zahara’s eating sounds and Aiden’s little noises as she sucked on Robin’s nipple. Robin looked up at Nick and Ilsa, who looked to be in deep internal struggle, both looking down, both processing the gravity of the situation and the very real prospect of losing their best friends, their siblings, and having to parent the only thing they’d leave behind. They all knew Robin and mostly, Strike, weren’t people to get dramatic. They had been mostly stoic about people like Laing, never once even thinking that they might actually be killed, and now here they were, in all seriousness trying to make sure their best friends knew what to do if they died, thinking of one of the worst outcomes the situation could have and planning ahead with a lot of cold blood.

“We would, of course, like for her to still be close to our families, if you guys wouldn’t mind... and when she’s old enough, know who her biological parents were and why they died... but she’d be your adoptive daughter, leg...” explained Strike in a whisper, thinking it maybe was necessary.

“Do you really think,” Ilsa interrupted him, her voice hoarse, “that you two might die in this?” she looked up at them and they saw her eyes were tearful. “Are you bloody serious?”

“We think there’s a high chance, yeah.” Robin sighed, hugging Aiden closer.

“But I don’t understand,” Nick looked at them in some distress. “This is just some jerk of a rapist and a murderer, what’s new? I’d say Laing was definitely worse, he killed every night and even cut them...” he eyed his daughter and shut up brusquely. “Point is, there are plenty of people out there that, like Robin pointed out, are dying for your guts, people with military experience, people with access to guns, people trained to kill, infinitely more dangerous than this dude... and you guys rarely even think of them, right? But this guy comes up and now you’re having street fight training, planning for your death, shutting down the office... I don’t get it...” Strike let a long breath out.

“I know Trewin doesn’t seem like such a terrible thing if you compare with other people that might be desperate to kill us, but the people we receive threats from, that’s all they are, threats, ” said Strike. “Statistically people who threaten for years and still haven’t done a thing are unlikely to ever do a thing, they would’ve done it already, and there are plenty of people who just need to threaten to let go, but wouldn’t actually do anything. Even Laing didn’t threaten, he sent body parts directly, and everyone else is in prison, except for Whittaker, who I would love to see trying to put a finger on me, and a few nutters who are just nutters, not interested in being in jail. But Trewin... he saw his life ruined at thirty-five, had most of his life in front of him and then it was all gone, a life sentence and what a life he was stolen of, right? Fucking girls the way he liked it without anyone complaining, being maintained by his parents, a girlfriend... And then he was in a hell hole of a maximum security penitentiary and his family and his girlfriend rejected him and abandoned him. Wardle told us this afternoon that they had interrogated several ‘friends’ of Trewin in prison and everyone says all he could talk about was of how Robin was going to pay, and this threat has a name and is not some abstract ‘maybe’. We’re talking about a guy who pressed his full weight on one arm on Robin’s _throat_ as he _raped_ her, he’s got no scruple, and he’s already killed twice that we know of just to get to her, with the full knowledge that he’s going to be dead or in prison for life next time police finds him, no matter what he does or does not do to Robin, and he doesn’t care. He’s not looking for fame or attention... he’s seeing red and only daydreaming for ten years of doing the worst harm and most cruel things he can come up with to Robin, and we know he’s been getting more and more violent, more and more fitter, and more and more trained for ten years. Any precaution we take feels like not enough.”

Robin put her boob back under her clothes as Aiden seemed finished and helped the milk-drunk child burp while ignoring their friends’ full-of-concern gazes. Zahara had started eating with her hands, which was probably easier for her, and neither of her parents seemed to mind in the slightest, too preoccupied with the situation.

“We know if it comes to it, we’ll do whatever it takes to protect our daughter,” said Robin, finally looking at their friends. “At least... she’s six months old only...” Robin kissed the top of Aiden’s head, accommodating her in her arms. “She wouldn’t remember us.”

“And we would take care of her like if she was ours,” Ilsa assured with a saddened expression. “But for God’s sakes, you two can’t go around taking unnecessary risks. We could never be a substitute from you... this is your daughter, you don’t just fight for her life... you fight to be in it.”

“We will,” Strike nodded, putting an arm around Robin. “We just couldn’t bear the thought of going around the world with her without a backup plan, and you guys are really a good choice. Besides, my sister already has three grown boys and Robin’s brothers don’t, for what we know, have a single idea of how to raise a child.”

Strike woke up hours later in his warm bed, feeling baby drool all over his chest and a pull from his chest hair that made him open his eyes. Aiden was staring at him and smiled as he looked at her, one of her hands harshly grabbing his cheek while her other hand grabbed onto his chest hair to avoid falling. She didn’t know how to crawl or sit up yet, but apparently she did know how to climb on her father through holding his chest hair and pulling herself up, making him groan. It was then that Strike heard Robin’s giggles and he looked to find her lying in bed with a nightgown on, looking at them while keeping a hand on Aiden’s ass in case she went backwards.

“Ouch,” Strike grumbled when, making a little noise, Aiden slapped his eye as if she was trying to grab onto his lashes. “You’re a little devil, Aidie...” he grabbed the baby and carefully lied her down between the adults, hovering over her while making a bit of a monster growl noise and blew raspberries on the baby’s belly lifting up her t-shirt and making her squeal and hit the leg with her strong legs, smiling.

Both Strike and Robin laughed of her squeals and Strike moved to kiss Robin, supporting himself on his forearms to avoid squashing Aiden.

“Good morning,” Robin kissed back.

“Indeed,” said Strike. “Another bad night?” Robin nodded. “Why don’t you wake me up, Robin? I would like to comfort you.”

“One of us needs not to be a zombie,” said Robin rolling eyes. “Besides, Aiden entertained me. She was up at five in the morning.

“Shut up, for real?” Strike widened eyes at Aiden. “To what work do you have to show up at, little bird? Is there something you’re not telling us?” he tickled her making her squeal more and he chuckled, leaning to kiss her on one of the fat cheeks. Robin laughed.

“I swear no one would believe me if I told them you went from being a grumbling ogre in the mornings to this drooling mess.”

“What can I say? Mini you’s got me wrapped around her micro-finger,” Strike smiled at Aiden. “At least she slept well, apparently.”

Robin’s phone rang and she threw her hand backwards to her nightstand, almost knocking down a framed picture of the last New Year’s Eve, Robin and Strike kissing under a snowfall with an almost three-months-old Aiden held in Robin’s arms as Strike hugged Robin from behind, their lips meeting above Aiden’s cheeky face and big arms mid-squeal, with her big beanie on and so many clothes she looked like a bear with a baby face. Instead, her hand finally found the small device and as she got comfortable on the bed again and Strike entertained Aiden, she attended the phone-call.

“Hi Wardle,” said Robin into the phone. Her eyes widened for a microsecond and she nodded. “All right, thanks for letting me know. See you...” she hung up and looked at Strike. “They’ve seen him, here in London.”

“Really? Where?” Strike asked stopping his attentions on the little girl, who instead held onto his hair as his head hovered over her belly, and Strike grimaced.

“Denmark Street,” Robin breathed out. “The 12 Bar Café owners said they saw him as they were opening this morning, he was standing in front of our building. He looked at them when he saw them staring, got scared and ran away, but they got a perfect view.”

“Bollocks,” said Strike, frowning. “At least he doesn’t know where he live, he would’ve shown up here instead.”

“That’s right,” Robin nodded. “Wardle wants for us to avoid going anywhere near downtown for a week. Get him to think we’ve left the city.”

“If he doesn’t think we’re here, he’ll leave and he may go to Masham or we’ll simply lose the trail.”

“That’s what I thought, but Wardle seems all convinced, said police is in the Denmark street area, everyone’s alerted and has a picture of him. Expects for him to be arrested this week, probably today, they’re registering every hotel, motel, rented flats... in that area, looking for him or anyone who’s seen him. He has to have slept nearby; he was seen at seven in the morning.”

“Right,” Strike nodded. “Let’s cross fingers then, Wardle’s good at following an identified prey. I’m going to hop in the shower, never said better,” he added humorously, making Robin roll her eyes and smile. “And then we’re going to sit and make a plan.”

“Hurry up, I want to shower too!” Robin shouted as Strike hoped out of the bedroom.

“You can join!”

“And who breastfeeds your child then, uh?” Robin chuckled amused and looked at Aiden, who was looking around with a bored expression. “You,” said Robin, hovering over her and letting her grab her hair, that always amazed her. “Have a very outstanding father. Have I ever told you before?” her lips found the chubby cheek and pressed a loud kiss, making her squeal. “We love you so very much Aiden, like you wouldn’t believe.” Robin whispered looking at her in the eyes.

It was five minutes later, as Robin sat up on the bed breastfeeding Aiden and the sound of the shower echoed in the house, that Robin heard her phone beep with a text and, thinking it must be Wardle, she grabbed her phone and opened the text. It came from an unknown number and it said:

‘ **Church Ln. by the A129 near Crays Hill, today in two hours. Leave the phone home and blocked so police doesn’t geo-locate it. Come alone and don’t call the police if you don’t want me to rip the guts out of your precious daughter, after she’s pleasured me better than her mother ever could. Logan xoxo.’**

It came with a picture of the front of their house. Robin’s heart seemed to stop mid-beat. He did know where they lived, he somehow knew, and the only reason he hadn’t come in was because he was taking further pleasure in having her give herself to him, willingly. Robin took a deep breath before texting back.

‘ **All right. Leave her out of this. I’ll be there.’**

  
  


  
  



	5. The chase

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy new year ;)

**Chapter 5:**

Robin got dressed as fast as physically possible, put a sleepy Aiden into her crib, and grabbed her gun from their safe. Robin had a basic 9mm pistol, while Strike had a Glock 17, used by the British police. She stuffed it in her purse and ran to the bathroom, bursting in as Strike hummed in the shower.

“I just realized I ran out of pads and I should be getting my period today, so I’m gonna run to the store okay?” Robin lied in the most honest tone she could muster.

“I can go for you while you shower,” Strike offered opening the shower curtain to peek a sight.

“I’m already dressed, it’s okay,” Robin cupped his face between her hands and kissed him intensely, then pulled apart. “Aiden’s asleep, do you need anything from the store? Shaving cream? Biscuits?”

“I’m good,” Strike smiled, accepting another kiss. “Are you okay?” he asked, sensing something he couldn’t quite pinpoint.

“Sure, you’re just so sexy all wet is taking all my personal strength not to jump your bones right now,” Robin chuckled, looking at him with adoration. “I love you more than life itself, you know, right?”

“I love you more,” Strike kissed her again. “Are you sure all’s good?” he asked again before Robin left the bathroom.

“It’s not, I’m having my period Cormoran, it’s terrible news,” Robin chuckled. “I love you!”

“Me too!”

She gulped a knot on the throat as she walked to Aiden’s crib and leaned to kiss her, conscious that she may never see her again.

“I hope to see you again, sweetheart,” Robin whispered kissing her sleeping face. “But if we don’t meet again, take care of daddy for me, will you? And never forget,” Robin rubbed her eyes impatiently. “That mama loves you and daddy more than anything else in the world. Be the best person you can be, okay? Be brave and strong. Be good and smart. Study hard, never let anyone bring you down or make you think you’re not good enough, you’re perfect just like you are, all right? Also... always tell your daddy you love him, will you? Always be good and respectful to him, even when he pisses you off, and remember underneath all that beard there’s a soft-hearted, loving man who will always do everything he can for you. Mummy will always be watching over you.”

Robin was rubbing tears away from her cheeks as she drove away from London as fast as she could without calling police’s attention. She had just dropped a note in the mailbox along with a short note scrawled really quickly for Strike:  _Forgive me. If this goes wrong, you have to take care of our daughter for the two of us, no matter what. Never forget how hard I will always love you and move on. Thank you for giving me the happiest year and a half of my life, giving me back my freedom and myself, and for your unconditional, sincere love._

When she was far into the A129, Robin made small stop to take a coffee, realizing she hadn’t had breakfast yet and she had time enough, and to take one last breath of freedom. Surprisingly, the closer she was to meeting Trewin in what would most certainly be her certain death, the calmer she felt. She smiled to herself sadly as she holstered on her gun, put a pocketknife in her pocket, and looked at a picture that she always carried in her wallet of Strike kissing Aiden’s cheek as he held her newborn self by his face, the baby looking at the camera. As Robin reflected on it, she felt brave and strong, not afraid. She smiled because she had been so lucky to have them, and Nick, and Ilsa, and everyone else, to have a new life, the job of her dreams, and a life she couldn’t have imagined in her best dreams. She smiled because she knew at the end of the day, no matter what happened to her, Logan Trewin would be dead and Aiden would sleep safe in her father’s arms.

Robin drove the last of the distance through green fields with lush vegetation and leafy trees, seeing small beautiful houses and thinking of Masham. As she parked outside Church Lane she reflected on the irony of the name, grabbing the gun and taking a deep breath.

“No one messes with my family, you major tit,” she grumbled feeling at ease, walking carefully inside Church Lane ready to shoot, like Strike had taught her.

**. . .**

Meanwhile in London, Strike had found, along with the morning mail, Robin’s note, and had ran to her phone, that he had seen on the night stand charging. With his heart pounding in his chest he fumbled with the phone to press possible passwords. The first attempt did it, it was Aiden’s birth date: 100412. Quickly he went to the last calls, figuring that call hadn’t been from Wardle but from Trewin, but he found this to not be the truth, as Wardle’s call was in the list in the right hour. Next, he decided to go to her messages, and ignoring a text from Linda asking for a picture of her granddaughter –that they had thoroughly spoiled all through Christmas- he found Trewin’s text and the picture of the house.

“Shit, shit!” Strike sat on the bed, thinking quickly. Robin had left half an hour ago, he hadn’t had breakfast yet, and Aiden was asleep in her crib. Robin had taken the car, so Strike would have to, fastest option, call for a taxi, bring Aiden to Nick And Ilsa’s, then get back on the taxi and make them drive to the address of the text, which would be crazy expensive, but that was the least of Strike’s concerns. Stopping to rent a car would be wasting too much time and according to his phone, it took at least an hour and a half to drive to the address. Robin would already be there by the time he left London, and she would have to survive at least half an hour.

Feeling there was no time to lose, he called for the taxi while putting a few thousand pounds in his wallet and preparing the baby bag. Luckily, they kept big amounts of money in their safe because it was often that they had to bribe someone to talk during the job and also having a daughter proved to be expensive and they barely had time to go to the cash point. He put his gun inside his jacket fully charged and rushed with Aiden in her car seat to the taxi that, by then, waited by the front door, hurrying to fix the seat into the car and rushing the driver.

Strike quickly discarded the idea of calling police; if Trewin had any suspicions that police was nearby, he’d kill Robin without a second thought, and Strike was counting on Trewin wanting to play around with her a bit, giving him time. Strike took a deep breath feeling panic arise and rushed the driver again until they finally stopped in Octavia Street.

“Wait here!” Strike shouted grabbing the car seat and the baby bag and banging his best friends’ door full strength, alternating with pressing the doorbell until he heard Zahara crying, and shouting for them to open up. “Open the damn door! It’s Cormoran! Nick! Ilsa! Open up, damn it!” Nick finally yanked the door open, in his pyjamas, looking ready to kill Strike. However, the words died in his mouth as Strike shoved the car seat against his belly, along with Robin’s phone and the baby bag. “Password’s Aiden’s birth date, wait one hour and call Wardle with the address you’ll find in a text from an unknown number. Take care of her,” Strike barely stopped to kiss Aiden and ignoring Nick’s questions, he rushed back to the taxi.

Strike felt on the verge of hysteria as the car drove full speed to the A129 after Strike convinced the driver that he was on a mission for the police ‘yes, like the Laing case!’ and that it was a life or death situation, throwing a hundred pounds on the driver’s lap while hurrying him to drive faster. Good thing of him being a taxi driver though, was that he knew the fastest routes and they managed to be by Church Lane a bit before the hour and a half through driving incredibly fast. It was as Strike jumped out of the taxi parked behind Robin’s Land Rover that he heard a female scream and he ran into the lane, ignoring his screaming leg, that had already had enough the day before. He stopped himself when he caught sight of the grass moving and saw two figures fumbling and rolling on the floor. He rushed there and stopped himself when he was close enough to see clearly. Robin seemed unconscious on the grass now, and Trewin was sitting on her belly. He looked up to him and he stood up, quickly aiming a gun on Robin.

“You can kill me, but can you do it faster than I kill her?” Trewin shouted at him. “Throw the gun aside, far!” Strike gritted his teeth.

“What’s my guarantee that you won’t kill both of us then?”

“None,” Trewin grinned. Strike cursed under his breath and did as Trewin said. He was at least pleased to see Trewin had a broken tooth that bleed copiously, a broken nose, and bleeding knuckles. He also had a purple cheekbone and his t-shirt had a good ton of blood in his belly and a slice there in the shirt where the blood seemed to be pouring from. Trewin slumped towards him, limping heavily. Robin had fought with all she had.

“You know you won’t live past today right?” Strike grumbled, as Trewin pointed his gun at him. “By now, my friend must’ve told the police where you are already. They’re coming.”

“They won’t be here on time,” Trewin spat blood out. Strike saw Robin’s gun not so far from himself, he could reach it if he just gave a big jump.

Strike had a card up his sleeve. He had left a police alarm sounding in his phone, all he needed to do was turn the volume up, and the hand was already inside the back pocket of his trousers. He pushed the button on the side of the phone with a fat thumb and a police sound blasted. Trewin immediately looked around and, although it would’ve taken him two seconds to identify where the sound came from, that one moment of hesitation was enough for Strike to jump to get the gun. He raised it against Trewin at the same time Trewin pointed back at him, and two shots blared at once.

  
  


  
  



	6. Bang

**Chapter 6:**

Robin’s blue-gray eyes shot open as she heard two gunshots. The pain coming from her left arm was excruciating, but when she turned her head, feeling dense blood pouring from it, and saw Strike on the ground on a growing pool of blood and Trewin also on the ground, but already sitting up, she pushed herself through the pain, feeling the most incredible hate and rage inside of her building up as she realized that Strike lied dead. She slumped her way to Trewin, who was laughing hysterically despite the blood pouring from his right clavicle. Strike had taught Robin that if she didn’t want to become a murderer, shooting there was just as good, pointing to the dominant arm. That way, Trewin couldn’t shoot and there was in fact a gun on the ground. Robin’s lied somewhere in the dense vegetation.

“Despicable tosser, fucking wazzock...” Robin grumbled kicking Trewin on the head so hard he fell back on the floor and stopped laughing. For a moment, Robin thought he was unconscious, but when he saw him moving, she flopped on top of him and with her battered right hand and ignoring the pain, she punched him until he flopped either death or unconscious, then some more, letting go of her rage as she started crying.

Then she heard a strangled breath behind her and she turned around. Strike had a hand on his bleeding chest. He was alive.

“Cormoran...” Robin stood up and ran, falling on her knees by his side. “Corm!” Strike looked at her, struggling to breathe, as blood poured and poured from his chest. Robin blinked several times to keep the tears away and, feeling she couldn’t move her left arm from the pain, she fumbled with her right hand inside his pocket, fidgeting with the phone and calling 999. Then she used her hand to make pressure on the wound, right in the middle of his sternum. “Hang in there love, just hang in there, do it for Aiden and for me. You have to live, fucking shit!” Robin eyed Trewin, who wasn’t moving, and redoubled her efforts on keeping Strike alive.

“ _You_ have to live,” Strike breathed out with effort. “I did... w-well... without a... d-dad... but I... n-needed a... mum...” he said between heavy breaths. Robin shook her head, sniffling strongly as she tried to stop crying. Strike’s eyelashes felt heavy for him and as much as he fought it, they ended up lowering over his eyes. “I... love... you...” Robin heard the barely audible mumbling. Her hand was full of his blood, failing to keep it inside.

  
  


**. . .**

  
  


Robin’s eyes fixed on her daughter’s abundant brown hair, the curliest a hair so short could be, forming zigzagging waves cross her small head. The little girl sat on her lap, her head thrown back against the side of her body that hurt the least. There was gauze on her forehead covering four stitches, and her face was much bruised. Her left arm was immobilised in a cast, and her right hand was bandaged up. She had a broken rib and more bruises than she could count. Aiden’s eyes had widened with a face of fear at the sight of her, but now the little girl played with her father’s watch on her lap, happily ignorant to the drama of the last eight hours. Robin, too, felt unconnected to all of it: to her two hours in the theatre for her arm to be repaired, to Ilsa and Nick running into the hospital after the longest time in the car, Lucy with them while Greg stayed behind to care for their sons, to her father’s worry and exaltation upon the news, to her own pain and anguish, to everyone else’s pain and anguish. The only real thing was herself and the soft baby cheek pressed against her hand as she caressed it from behind her.

The news had started travelling to London and everywhere else like a flame in a burning cord, while she was in the theatre. Upon arriving to the hospital, a nurse had asked Robin for an emergency contact. Robin’s emergency contact was Strike, so she had to think of someone else and Nick came to mind. It was he and Ilsa that had Aiden. He was a doctor. He could take decisions in her behalf if she couldn’t. Then Nick had told Ilsa, who told Lucy, who called Ted and Joan in St. Mawes, Cornwall, while Ilsa suggested they called Robin’s family, using the phone of Robin, still in Nick’s power. Nick, pressured by Strike, had called Wardle exactly one hour after Strike left the door, when he wasn’t even with Robin yet, which prompted to Wardle being there considerably fast, but only in time to hear the doctor’s statement and collect evidence. He had yet to ask Robin, who knew she had many questions to answer to everyone and who was yet to say a thing about it, since she had been too high on painkillers to think clearly. In fact, she only knew how to deal with Aiden out of pure instinct, that cleared her foggy mind enough. So no one pressured and they sat in consternation around Robin’s bed in the private room where she would spent a night, maybe two, until she felt ready to talk. Until her eyes didn’t look lost in the horizon. Until her own brain could understand the horror of what had happened.

She didn’t even notice the door opening and closing until Lucy sat on the verge of her bed and squeezed her thigh softly, making her look up to the older woman, whose expression reflected more anguish and stress than Robin had ever seen her have.

“They let me stay with him for an hour,” said Lucy, her voice low on energy. “He doesn’t look very well but... they said he is lucky to still be alive. They’ll operate again tomorrow, finish reconstructing his sternum.” Robin nodded slowly, feeling the news like a slap to wake her up.

“He’s _alive_? But how? He was dead,” said Robin, confused. “He _died_. In my arms.”

“They got him back,” explained Lucy, smiling a little. She, too, was pale and tired. “His doctor explained the paramedics brought him back little after you were put in another ambulance, that’s why you never knew. You both were in surgery at the same time, only that his lasted way longer than yours. He’s in the Essex Cardiothoracic Centre’s ICU, right here, the building next door.”

“Here?” Robin realised she didn’t know where they were. She saw green fields through the window.

“Basildon University Hospital.”

“Oh,” Robin nodded. She smiled, her eyes filled with tears. She was so high on painkillers and meds to soothe her that she couldn’t even get properly excited. “He’s alive... is he gonna be okay? Is he going to come home with us?” Lucy looked saddened and moved a hand to cup her cheek. That same hand had retrieved Strike’s belongings from a nurse –his watch, his mobile, his house keys and his wallet had been all he had on top- and given her niece the damn watch she loved.

“His condition is very unstable, they don’t know,” Lucy shrugged. Joan who, with Ted, had come in a plane as fast as possible, sighed sitting by the bed. “They said if he’s okay tomorrow, they’ll do that surgery, but they might wait until he’s stronger, and they said as soon as he’s stable he can be transported to the Royal London Hospital, but it could take days and he could still... you know...”

“Die as we speak,” Robin murmured, her smile vanishing. Lucy nodded. Aiden couldn’t understand why her normally cheerful aunt and mum looked so grim, but she was distracted by the discovery that the sun reflected on the metallic watch and made the light appear on the wall like a flashlight. A cat would’ve also been fascinated by that.

“The bullet went into his right lung, cracking his sternum in half,” Lucy explained. “It’s not only extremely painful but also extremely grave. The doctor explained it dodged arteries by millimetres, and it went to the left lung through bouncing against the bone, but it could’ve equally gone straight to his heart and killed him in an instant. He’s been _extremely lucky_. I think he will be again, man’s got seven lives.” She tried to cheer her up, give her some hope, and in the process, do the same with herself.

“Robin,” Wardle intervened cautiously. He had flopped on a plastic chair and shut up for hours, looking grim himself. “I need to know how we got to this situation, there’s paperwork to do in London, and a man’s dead.”

“A monster’s dead,” Robin corrected.

“Yes, but to the judge right now either you or Strike are a murderer, so you need to tell me what happened. Nick says Strike gave him your phone and Aiden and ran without saying anything but to tall me in one hour and take care of the baby, and I get to the address to find police, ambulances and fucking chaos. I can’t give the big bosses the answers that are needed so procedures can start and we can close this case, and most importantly,” Wardle took a breath. “I actually do _care_ about you guys. I want to know why you went solo instead of trusting me to keep you safe.”

“Because Aiden would be worse than dead, Eric,” Robin looked at him, her eyes glassy. “You want the truth? The truth is I can only imagine how Corm figured it out. Trewin texted me, told me where and when to go, gave me two hours to go, you must’ve seen the text,” he nodded. “He knew where we lived. He knew, all along, but I can only psychoanalyze that it was funnier to have me go willingly, with my one day of training. I didn’t tell Cormoran because I knew he’d want to come and I knew Trewin would love to kill him and I couldn’t...” she gulped a sob and sniffled, rubbing her eyes. “I left him a note in the mailbox and left my phone in the room because Trewin didn’t want for the police to geo-locate me there, he said if police came after him Aiden would be raped and killed, that it was me or her. So of course I went solo. I tried to protect them both and I didn’t stop to think that Corm has the exact same password in his phone that I do, Aiden’s fucking birth date, so he must’ve unlocked my phone and saw my message, probably because he saw the note first and he thought when you called me a bit before it had been Trewin, it makes sense. I had thought he wouldn’t pick up the mail for God knows how long because I thought he’d call you saying I was missing a couple hours later when he realised, and then he’d be too focused in me to think of the mail, see my note... and I never thought he would’ve gone to my phone until it was already late.”

“So you never spoke to him...”

“No,” Robin took a deep breath that stung in her broken rib’s area. “I took the car and I left and I trusted there was no way he could get there in time, even if he found out, to be in danger, because he would’ve had to rent an automatic. I still haven’t figured that part out.”

“Taxi,” said Wardle. “He paid a hundred bucks to a taxi driver. The guy stayed nearby because Strike told him it was a police thing and he was curious, when he saw police and ambulances, he ran out to gossip and tell what he knew, and he said he picked Strike up at your house and that they dropped of a baby in Octavia Street and then went off to you, that Strike was hysterical and shouting at him to accelerate the entire time.” Robin shook her head, closing her eyes and leaning back against the pillows. “Did Strike kill Trewin? Doctor said he died of a brain haemorrhage and a ruptured artery due to a shot from your gun...”

“I don’t...” Robin let a long sigh out and opened her eyes. Their friends and families looked expectant. “Neither of us killed him on purpose. When Corm came Trewin had disarmed me and broken my arm, he was beating me up to death and Corm was ready to shot him dead, but he didn’t. I fainted, I don’t know what happened... when I woke up, they both had been shot and I thought Cormoran was dead. Trewin was sitting there _laughing_. Fucking...” Robin took another deep breath. “I saw red and I went and kicked his head, it was at proper height. But he was moving still, and I was still seeing red so I took it out on him and punched him until I heard Corm gasp and figured he was alive so I went to care for him, forgot about Trewin. So I guess we both killed him accidentally. Cormoran shot to the shoulder on purpose, he told me yesterday if you just needed to disarm you didn’t need to take a life, that you could shoot exactly to the clavicle, which is what he did. And I was just thinking of breaking his face before he shot again, he still had a gun in his hand.”

Wardle nodded slowly and got up.

“That’s all right Robin,” said Wardle. “No one can blame either of you, it was self-defence and accidental. I’ve got to go back to London and handle this, but I’ll see you soon.” Robin nodded and Wardle patted Aiden’s head and waved goodbye to the rest. “Let me know whatever happens.” He added before leaving.

  
  



	7. Priorities

**Chapter 7:**

Robin let a long sigh out calming herself and with her one good hand she rummaged in the first drawer of her nightstand, finding her belongings and between them, the keys of the Land Rover and the keys of the house, and she handed them to her dad, that was close by.

“The Land Rover is parked in the A129, by Church Lane. You guys can stay in my house,” said Robin tiredly.

“Not at all love, we’ll get a room in a hotel in the area to be close to you two,” Robin’s father argued, his own blue eyes checking Robin with paternal concern.

“Dad, seriously...” Robin didn’t feel like arguing. “It’s late, Aiden needs to sleep and with the rough shitty day she’s had I’d rather she at least comes back to her own crib, her toys and her house, so you need to go with her and have some grandparents-granddaughter time, you barely see her anyway. In fact,” she added, “you should all be going back home, it’s dinner time almost.” Michael and Linda Ellacott exchanged looks that left very clear they’d only leave to care for their granddaughter.

“Greg can take care of that, if you think I’m leaving my actual siblings all alone in a situation like this...” Lucy was not having it and Robin decided to just let her be, she wasn’t going to argue. “I’ll be fine on the sofa really. Ted, Joan, why don’t you grab my car and go to my place? You can stay in the guest room as usual.”

“We’ve come all the way from Cornwall just to be close, we’re not leaving now,” Joan argued. “We’ll get a room at a hotel, is fine.”

“You should go back to Zahara, I bet she misses you,” Robin whispered looking at Nick and Ilsa, who seemed to be in internal debate.

“You have work tomorrow, I can stay...” Ilsa whispered to Nick, who nodded.

“I’ll get Zae then,” Nick kissed her and stood up. “I’ll go get Aiden’s seat from the car for you.” He said looking at the Ellacotts, and left the room.

“Okay baby, time to go home with grandpa and grandma, isn’t that exciting?” Robin feigned she didn’t feel the stabs of separating from her offspring as she kissed her on the face and gave her a gentle squeeze before letting Linda take her granddaughter.

However, the moment Aiden perceived the intentions of her grandma, she started crying heavily, looking up at Robin with pleading blue-gray eyes full of tears, her lips opened a little as she sobbed, showing her only two teeth, her cheeks red. It wasn’t an ‘I’m hungry’ or ‘I’m tired’ or ‘change my nappies’ kind of cry, it was just full tragedy and drama. Strike had said before she was so dramatic, but this was different and Robin felt something shatter inside.

“Oh, come on sweetheart,” Linda held the baby against her chest and kissed her forehead. “You’ll see mummy soon again, and tonight we’ll do anything you want uh?” Linda, who was usually good with babies, looked helpless as Aiden just cried harder, wailed, and stretched her arms towards Robin in pure anxiety. Robin was afraid the baby would give herself a panic attack for one moment.

“No, give her back mum,” Robin blurted out.

“Sweetie is fine, babies don’t like these things...”

“And I’m not having it. She stays with me,” said Robin firmly. The baby was placed back on her lap and Robin manoeuvred one-handed with Aiden so she’d lean back against her chest, tucking her face in the crook of her neck and supporting her with a hand on her ass, kissing her forehead. “Mum, go find my doctor, will you? I’m gonna sign myself out of here.”

“Robin you need to re...”

“I need to be with my daughter,” argued Robin. “She’s with us at home, she’s with us at work, and she only lets go if she knows is fine. Do you think she’s getting a fine vibe here, that she doesn’t have a feeling of something terribly wrong in the picture? Look at her. She’s not going to sleep like this and probably not eat either, she’s stubborn as hell. She hasn’t been with her parents all day and when she finally gets one it’s all full of bruises, she is scared. I’m not going to force her to go.” Robin tried to bounce Aiden a little despite her pain and the baby seemed to calm down a little, but was still sniffling and breathing heavily, a little hand still gripping her father’s watch. Linda nodded looking at her granddaughter and leaving to find the doctor.

Nick came back holding Aiden’s chair in one hand and looked at Aiden with a frown.

“What’s wrong with her?” Nick caressed the back of her head, empathetic. “So upset...”

“Well I’m going to be discharging myself apparently,” Robin kissed Aiden’s forehead. “She hates every single part of the situation, I’d say. Her father should be bathing her right now and instead she gets this shit of a day.”

“In the positive side,” said Nick. “Trewin’s dead. Let’s keep the one good thing that came out of today at sigh. Well, that and the fact that Corm and you are alive.”

“Yeah... no more hiding,” Robin smiled a little at Aiden. Linda re-entered the room with Robin’s doctor. “Hey uh, I want to self-discharge.”

“I wouldn’t recommend it Ms. Ellacott,” the doctor said. “Your wounds are painful and here you can be more com...”

“Oh, I agree,” Robin interrupted him. “Problem is my first duty is with my daughter, so I’m leaving and I’m going to breastfeed my child to sleep and get a nice session of baby cuddles as soon as I hit the bed. So please bring me the paperwork, I’m in too much of a hurry to argue.” The doctor nodded and reluctantly handed Robin a paper and indicated where she had to sign.

“Shit, you don’t have clean clothes,” Lucy remembered suddenly. “They’re bloody and well, the doctors had to cut your shirt off so...”

“Oh damn...” Robin bit her lip. “Can you go buy me something real quick Luce?”

“I can lend you something, I brought a change of clothes.”

Robin needed a full half an hour to change into Lucy’s lent blouse, jacket and jeans, with her mother’s help, while the others kept Aiden entertained. Everything hurt and her shoes were full of dirt, but it didn’t matter. She let her mum do her hair and dragged herself out of the bathroom, recovering her purse and throwing hers and Strike’s belongings inside while Aiden laughed at something Ilsa had done. Her thoughts flew suddenly to Strike. Was she really going to leave him alone here? She was his emergency contact in the end, and his girlfriend, the mother of his child, the love of his life.

“Okay so, Aiden and I leave with my parents, Nick’s back to Zahara, Lucy, Ilsa, Ted, Joan, are you staying with Corm?” Robin re-checked. Lucy nodded.

“We’ll go to a hotel, don’t worry.” Said Lucy.

“Well it’s absurd that four people stay if only one can be with him during the very short visiting hours, right?” said Robin after a moment of thought. “I think Ilsa should go back with Nick and Zahara, Ted and Joan fit in the Land Rover with us and Lucy, you stay? Look I’ll be here in the morning if Ilsa can drive me, I’m sure Aiden won’t mind staying in her house a few hours with my parents if I stick with her tonight.”

Eventually, they had agreed to a plan. Lucy would stay the night with Strike, Ted, Joan, Robin and Linda would fit themselves into the Land Rover’s benches while Michael drove and Aiden’s chair was adjusted into the co-driver’s seat, Ilsa and Nick would go back to Zahara, and first thing in the morning Ilsa and Robin would come back, substitute Lucy so she could go home, take a shower and maybe work, and then after lunch Nick and Greg would come and Lucy, Ilsa and Robin could leave. They wrote down an extensive plan of relief for at least a week so Strike was never alone and no one had to spend too much time in the hospital.

Hours later, Robin was flopping in her bed with Aiden, closing her eyes as pure exhaustion reached her. The next would be a very long day.

  
  


  
  


  
  



	8. Homemade

**Chapter 8:**

The first time Robin had seen Strike, it had been hard not to cry. He was beautifully untouched, not one ugly bruise like the ones she carried, yet he was the one gravely hurt and fighting for his life, all because of what hid behind a large bandage in the middle of his chest. If it wasn’t for the machines around him and the paleness of his skin, one wouldn’t guess he was so badly wounded.

They rotated for four days before it was considered safe to get him to the Royal London Hospital, which definitely made things a little easier and everyone could visit him frequently. Robin alternated between work, Aiden and Strike. Aiden, in the meantime, seemed in a worse mood every day that she didn’t see Strike and Robin was convinced if she could speak she would’ve yelled for her dad already.

It took two weeks of things getting ‘better’ for everything to go downhill when an infection sent Strike straight into coma. And Robin prayed every minute of the long night she spent next to him, waiting for some improvement or for the worst news. Eventually, coma became the meaning of being stable. He stopped improving, yes, but he stopped being worse. And Robin decided it was time to bring Aiden, three weeks without seeing him.

“Daddy’s sleeping okay?” Robin whispered to Aiden, scooping her up in her one good arm as they entered the room where Lucy was reading ‘Catullus’ out-loud in hopes that Strike would be so scandalized with her pronunciation of Latin that he’d wake up.

“Hi sweet pie,” Lucy grinned at her niece, who right away stretched arms to her father, hooked to ventilators and everything else.

“Be careful, Aiden,” said Robin kissing her daughter’s cheek. “Daddy’s asleep, don’t bother him.” Very carefully and with Lucy’s help, she placed Aiden on Strike’s left side, supporting her head on his chest and moving his arm a little so it’d seem like he was holding her.

Aiden seemed to sense something odd, because she lied very quietly, gripping the hospital gown with one fist. But for the first time in three weeks, she seemed to relax, closing her eyes ready to sleep in her father’s arms like she had done countless times since the moment she was born to be the apple of Strike’s eyes. Before she knew it, Robin had fallen asleep with her head in the small portion of Strike’s pillow that was free, above Aiden’s head, with a hand on Aiden’s back for safety.

It seemed like a very short time before Lucy woke her up, and she looked up ready to bark when she saw why she had been woken up. Strike’s eyes were wide open and fixed on Aiden and her, and Aiden had woken up and was pinching Strike’s cheek, although he didn’t seem to mind.

“Cormoran,” Robin grinned, leaning to kiss his cheek and pull Aiden away. “You’re awake!”

“I’ll find the doctor!”

Fifteen minutes later, the doctor had helped Strike accommodate into a semi-sitting position and the tubes in his mouth had disappeared, substituted instead for an oxygen canula. He had been helped to a bit of water, and although he felt pretty weak, having Aiden on his lap smiling at him and Robin’s hand in his made him feel much better.

“How’re you feeling?” Lucy asked motherly sitting on an armchair in the other side of the bed, stroking his hair with one hand.

“Tired,” Strike answered hoarsely, his throat still mostly dry after weeks unused. He smiled weakly at Aiden’s squeals, one of his big hands helping her sit up. “She’s so big...”

“Yeah, it’s been three weeks and she grows like her father,” Robin kissed his cheek for the umpteenth time in the last two minutes, squeezing his hand. “Need anything?”

“I’m perfect,” Strike smiled at her. Despite his weakness, he couldn’t believe his luck, sitting there with Robin all okay, although she looked terrible, and Aiden. He felt the luckiest man in the world. “He gone?”

“He’s dead,” said Robin, nodding with a smile. “He’ll never bother us again. You silly man, always putting yourself on the line aren’t you?” Robin kissed him again, overwhelmed with affection. Strike smiled against her lips.

“Woman,” he whispered. “It has taken me thirty-eight fucking years to be the happiest man in the world. If you think I’m letting anyone threaten that, you don’t know me at all...” Strike smiled at her, accepting another kiss.

“I’m never letting you off my sight again, you big cheesy giant,” Robin said between kisses peppered all over his face. “I love you so damn much.”

By dinner time, as the room filled with family and friends, Strike felt well enough to read Aiden her bed time story, letting her lean her head against his left clavicle, so she wouldn’t hurt him, while he read very slowly supporting his chin on her head. The baby ended up sleeping soothed by his voice and Strike leaned back against his pillow, keeping an arm around the little girl. Strike knew it wouldn’t take much effort for him to fall asleep, he wasn’t even hungry and the sight of Robin laughing about something Hardacre had told them while eating her dinner sandwich relaxed him enough to feel like falling asleep. However, the sight of the silver paper from the sandwich on Robin’s lap gave him a different idea, making him reach to grab it.

“What are you doing?” Robin smiled tenderly at him, seeing him manipulate the long paper.

“I’m going to make Aiden a bracelet,” Strike chuckled weakly, taking size of Aiden’s wrist and getting rid of the rest of the paper. Robin’s eyes crinkled and she smiled bigger at him.

However, Strike wasn’t planning on making Aiden a bracelet, sorry for her. But the lie made everyone stop being so attentive at his doings while he rolled the paper until it looked like a very thin snake and then, after several minutes of slow working and intervening in the conversations every now and then, he had made a small ring, taking the two extremes of the... silver paper cord, we could say? And rolling them as if he was putting a screw until they formed a small ball on top of the ring, like a rock. He hid the little ring in his hand and beamed weakly at Robin.

“Hey Robin?” he called her excitedly, showing her the ring. Robin’s eyebrows rose at it, but she figured he was high on drugs and being silly, making her a bit of jewellery.

They had talked about marriage. One of the things that generally happened when two small-town persons had a baby together was that everyone started asking when they were going to marry, so they had several talks about it and ended up deciding that Robin had barely married a year before –now almost two- and didn’t feel like marrying again. Strike didn’t care much about marriage, and the two decided that it wasn’t necessary for now. They were happy. They were a family. And they still had a lot to know of each other, a lot to date and live to see if they really wanted a forever with the other, they had only been together for a bit over a year, not even year and a half yet, and there was no money for a wedding at the moment. So they agreed not to marry for now, to just live their life, go with the flow and not hurry things up, for Aiden. Neither of them wanted a divorce, neither of them wanted shit between them.

“You made me a ring?” Robin chuckled, imagining it was an innocent thought.

“An _engagement_ ring!” Strike said with renewed energy, still beaming. “Marry me, Robin.” Robin laughed.

“What are you talking about, silly boy?” Robin cupped his cheek sweetly. “We talked about this, remember?”

“Yeah but,” said Strike, stubborn. “I’ll still be very upset if you say no. Besides!” he grinned. “All girls want a husband that cooks, takes care of their children and would take a bullet for them, and I do _all_ of that. I’m a bit old an unfit, true but, I’m wiser and smarter than any dude your age you’ll ever meet. I’m a catch, babe.” Despite the amount of meds in his bloodstream, Strike felt excited and more awake than he had felt in the last few hours. Robin grinned, wishing they were alone and not surrounded by people.

“What do you give me if I say yes?” Robin asked feeling playful at his childish excitement. Strike got serious.

“A silver-paper ring and kisses every day for the rest of our lives.”

“Okay then,” Robin carefully slid the ring in her finger and grinned at Strike.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Robin cupped his face and kissed him, leaning over their sleeping daughter.

“Should we cheer or...?” Nick asked under his breath.

“Shut up,” Ilsa smiled, kissing him.


	9. Compromise

**Chapter 9:**

May 9 th  2013 woke up rainy, but that didn’t affect his mood negatively as Strike opened his eyes and saw his own bedroom, heard Robin’s breathing on the right, and felt Robin’s hand over his own as it rested on her belly. After five weeks in the hospital, Strike had just spent his very first night back home, with his future parents-in-law sleeping on the sofa-bed, which was the best they could offer them. However, Michael and Linda hadn’t complained, refusing to go back to Masham just yet and wanting to stick around to help their only daughter and soon only son-in-law out while they got used to the house again.

“Morning,” Strike moved to kiss Robin’s shoulder, then her cheek, and then her temple. Robin smiled sleepily as her eyes opened to look at his.

“Hi,” Robin whispered. “How did you sleep?”

“Good,” Strike had slowly moved to be on top of Robin, using his arms for leverage as he placed kisses all over Robin’s bruised face. His chest and back stung, but he couldn’t care less. “How are you? You’re all bruised even after all this time...”

“I’m okay, only my arm hurts now,” Robin raised her head to kiss him. “You can squash me a little, I like it.” Strike chuckled letting just a little of his weight fall on Robin and pressed his face against the crook of her neck, kissing there. Robin hummed happily, burying her fingers in his hair.

It took them ten minutes to push themselves out of bed but when they did, Strike put on his leg and took Aiden in his arms, as the little girl was already awake and grinned when her father leaned over the crib to check on her. Linda and Michael were already busy making breakfast and Strike found it nice to eat breakfast with them for a change.

“Have you thought anything about the wedding yet?” Linda asked casually as they ate English breakfast. Strike was in the process of recovering his appetite so he was sharing his eggs with Aiden, who greedily tipped her finger in the egg and sucked it off.

“No, we haven’t had time,” Robin no longer wore her beautiful silver-paper ring, since it was too fragile for the daily basis, but she had it protected inside a frame, “although I’m going to fight for my damn winter wedding again.” She added chuckling at Strike, who smiled.

“Winter wedding? Sounds nice,” Strike smiled at her. “I won’t be smelling of sweat. Although can we do it in Cornwall love? So it’s a little less cold.”

“Really, that easy?” Robin was nicely surprised. With Matthew, all were always disagreements. “Sure, Cornwall sounds lovely.” Strike grinned.

“December? We can take advantage of the winter holidays,” Strike proposed. During the winter holidays all their friends and family would be off at home, so it wouldn’t be so hard to have them assist.

“New Year’s Eve!” Robin yelped excitedly. “On our anniversary!”

“Sure! Damn, planning a wedding with you is the easiest thing,” Strike leaned to kiss her softly. His beard, grown from five weeks of not shaving, tickled her face making her snort a laugh against his lips.

“New Year’s Eve wedding,” Michael nodded approvingly. “Leaves us with seven months to plan it all. Will be enough.”

“Actually,” said Strike, thinking. “Why don’t we have a small, intimate wedding & New Year’s Eve party all in one? Just our families and our closest friends, nothing more. And we can try to avoid heavy planning, just plan a party and casually marry in it.”

“I did hate with all of me planning, poor mum carried with all of it,” Robin looked apologetically at her mother. “So I’m all in! Let’s find some nice place, someone who’d marry us and do the most uncomplicated wedding we can. How many people are we really talking of?”

Strike grabbed a piece of paper and a pen from the sitting room and starting writing as he spoke names of their family.

“...and Jon, makes seventeen family members including ourselves and Aiden. And then if we add everyone else...” Strike continued with their closest friends. After a few minutes scribbling names, he stopped. “Sixty people at the very most. I don’t think we reach fifty really, and I counted on Shanker bringing Alyssa and the girls.” Shanker had been dating Alyssa Vincent ever since he helped Robin get Brockbank and for what they knew, they were getting pretty serious. Shanker was even behaving more like a decent person and rummaging less and less in the worst of London, and he seemed to care a lot for Alyssa and the girls. Strike, who had never thought of him as father material, was getting as surprised as he imagined people got with him and Aiden.

“Nice,” Robin smiled looking at the list. “I like it.” She kissed his cheek. “You put the Anstises?”

“Timothy’s my godson, I suppose they won’t forgive me if I don’t invite them,” Strike shrugged. “And their third child is about Aiden’s age, they might get along.”

As Robin faced the rain to get to work, Strike, Aiden and the Ellacott grandparents sat to watch a Disney movie that lasted the ten minutes Aiden needed to show them she didn’t give a shit about princesses, moment in which Michael and Aiden got on the carpet to play with an electric train he had gifted her, Linda watched a mystery TV series she liked while looking at her granddaughter fondly every now and then, and Strike devoted to entertain himself.

Strike had had a reputation of a handyman his entire life. He used to love helping Ted and Joan with repairing things around the house or doing handicrafts, and he had an idea for the framed ring. He cut a piece of cardboard the size of the little frame and painted it white. Then, with a little knife, he removed the first layer of cardboard making a small home in the lower part of the cardboard with the shape of the ring, and pressed the ring into it, filling the hole. Then above, on the cardboard, he used leftover cardboard to glue in a small frame and inside, using golden paint –he actually sat and mixed paint until he had the right colour- and a thin paint brush he wrote a few words in pretty handwriting:

‘ _ **This is a compromise to:**_

_**Listen, love, respect, share, care for, protect, cherish, support, try to understand, have each other’s backs and be partners in all the ways life provides.** _

_**In poverty and in richness, in health and in sickness, no matter what, for the rest of our lives.** _

_**Felix Culpa’** _

Smiling to himself, he hung the small frame over the headboard of their bed and went back to the sitting room, where Michael and Linda were making Aiden laugh with faces and noises.

“Oh am I missing a party with the grandpas?” Strike smiled looking down at the baby lying on the carpet.

“She’s the most precious thing,” Linda grinned. “How’s your chest feeling today honey?”

“It’s okay,” Strike nodded, grateful. “Bit tight, that’s all. Hey, would you guys babysit Aiden tonight? I was thinking of taking Robin out on a surprise date.”

“Aw...” Linda beamed. “Sure! We’ll party here.” Michael nodded, grinning and then blowing a raspberry on Aiden’s belly.

“Great, thanks,” Strike would’ve sat on the carpet with them, but he was still too weak to even bear the mere thought of getting up afterwards. “By the way, I’m sorry I never asked... I meant to have asked for permission before... proposing.”

“That’s completely fine son, we’re in the twenty-first century now,” Michael looked unconcerned at him. “We have no doubt you’re the best match for our Robin, the girls love you more than anything so what else could we possibly want for them uh?”

“Exactly right, we’re more than pleased to welcome you to the family.” Strike smiled.

“Well, thanks then. Means a lot,” Strike smiled openly, grateful.

After lunch, he was off to showering and getting into his best suit after a good shave. Strike even stopped for a few minutes looking at himself in the mirror wondering how he could look so good in the suit when he had lost a tremendous amount of weight in the past month and was very skinny. While he put Aiden down for a nap, he called Robin to let her know to come early because she had to get fancy for a fancy restaurant date. Robin was surprised but pleased, and got into her Vashti green dress once she was home, accepting Linda’s help to do her hair and makeup. Those were tasks a bit difficult for someone with an entire arm on a cast.

She was just walking around the bedroom picking things to throw into her small purse while Aiden slept when she noticed the small square frame over the headboard, and saw Strike’s work. A grin grew in Robin’s face and her eyes threatened with ruining her make-up.

“Oh my...” she rushed downstairs to Strike, who was so handsome and sexy in his newest suit with his dark green tie.

“Woah,” Strike beamed at her. “You look tremendous Robin! I mean, not that you don’t usually, just...” Robin shut him up with a kiss, jumping to his arms.

“I love what you’ve done with the frame,” Robin whispered pulling apart. “You’re a dream man, Corm.”

“Only what you deserve,” Strike kissed her again. “Let’s go, shall we? Our carriage awaits!”

“Carriage?”

“Well a small black taxi, but you’ve got imagination,” Robin snorted a laugh and nodded. They gave farewells to the Ellacotts, enumerated a list of things necessary for Aiden’s well-being as if they didn’t know how to care for a baby, and were off to one of London’s best restaurants, with views to the Thames.

On their way there, Strike couldn’t help but look at Robin. Even with a casted arm and a scar above her eyebrow, her cheek still somewhat bruised, she was the shining star anywhere. He wasn’t just mesmerized by her beauty, he was struck by lightning at everything she meant to him. He couldn’t quite believe his luck yet, and neither he could as they walked to their booked table, arm in arm. Strike moved Robin’s chair for her and kissed her cheek before sitting by her, intertwining hands over the table.

The conversation flew easily. Cases, clients, latest news, something funny they had seen, the little cute things Aiden had done during the day, any anecdote... it was easy to fill in the silences but it was equally easy to let themselves fall in them as they admired each other, completely comfortable. They were waiting for the dessert when Strike got up and knelt on the floor by her side, pulling a tiny velvet box out of his jacket without caring for anyone’s looks.

Robin grinned looking at him adoringly and let him take her hand and kiss the back of it delicately. Then, Strike opened the box to show her a stunning, silver ring with a tiny round emerald surrounded by a very thin line of micro diamonds.

“Robin Venetia Ellacott,” said Strike beaming at her. “I’ve always known you aren’t the kind of woman one simply dates; you’re the woman one _marries_. You’re the happiest result mistakes have ever given me, along with our daughter. You two are my Felix Culpa...” he gulped. “And nothing would make me happier than spending the rest of my life with you. I want to reach the highest of ranks with you, my love... so... would you be my wife?” Robin beamed.

“Yes!” Strike slid the very real ring in her finger as he carefully stood up and cupped her face between his hands, kissing her.

  
  


  
  



	10. Excitedly planning

**Chapter 10:**

As Strike couldn’t quite go to work just yet –he got overly tired just with half an hour of walking and the stairs had him panting every time- and working from home proved to still be exhausting, he found himself having difficulty to be entertained, even more once Linda and Michael, and Ted and Joan, were back home. He could be entertained with Aiden, yes, but the baby girl had the stamina of a tea-spoon and wouldn’t stay awake time enough. So Strike found himself getting entertained with the most unexpected thing: planning their wedding.

He spent a couple hours finding how to make reservations in St. Mawes’ castle for their wedding, finding websites where they could buy their masks, and writing down a possible official list of guests. Strike figured that the sooner they sent the invitations, the better, since the party was in a typical family time, so people had to be booked very in advance. When all of that was done, there were still hours until lunch so he took a paper sheet and started writing:

‘ _\- Music._

_\- Flowers._

_\- Food._

_\- Seats: only main table and children’s table, the rest can seat wherever they want.’_

Satisfied with himself, he put the note on the cork they had on the kitchen wall with their meals’ timetable. Right then he heard Aiden wailing and he rushed to the sitting room, where Aiden slept in a tiny electronic rocking crib-seat, taking the baby up in his arms and kissing her head.

“Hungry little bird?” Strike smiled at the child. “You’re such a terrible mini human when you’ve just been woken up, isn’t it?”

When Robin came home later in the day, worried because Strike hadn’t picked his phone in the last hour, she found the man snoring away on the sofa and Aiden asleep on his chest, and smiled, going and waking her future husband up with kisses.

“You’re here,” Strike breathed out smiling sleepily.

“Yeah...” Robin kissed his forehead.

“I reserved St. Mawes’ castle for our wedding, is that all right?” Strike asked. Robin grinned.

“Aw, that’ll be perfect love...”

“Good...” Strike cleared his throat. “I also came up with a super idea, Robin.”

“Yeah?”

“Masquerade wedding!” Robin’s jaw dropped.

“Cormoran Blue Strike, are you seriously going to be a cool guy?”

“I _am_ a cool guy,” Strike snorted a laugh. “But think about it! Your name is Robin _Venetia_. Masquerade. Get it?” Robin started laughing and nodded.

“Okay, we’ll have a masquerade wedding in St. Mawes’ castle.”

“On December 31st. At eight in the evening.” Robin raised her eyebrows in surprise and Strike smiled innocently.

“Did you send the invitations already?” Strike snorted a laugh.

“We have to _make_ them, silly,” Robin rolled eyes and smiled.

“I didn’t expect you to get so ahead on wedding planning,” commented Robin as they sat on the sofa with Robin’s laptop, Strike accommodating Aiden against his shoulder. “I hated it.”

“Oh, but I’m excited,” said Strike, a hand cupping the back of Aiden’s head and another her back. “I didn’t expect it would be such a thrill, but I’m just so thrilled, you know? I never thought I’d marry such a perfect woman.” Robin smiled sweetly at him, leaning to kiss him.

“Saying that while having our sweet girl sleeping on you just adds sexy points, I hope you know,” Robin laughed. “Okay so we should probably think of a style for the wedding?”

“It’s a New Year’s party and it’s in the evening so I’d say formal but not overly posh like... tuxedos is fine, I think?” Robin nodded.

“I was thinking of wearing a long dress with long sleeves but without much tail,” said Robin. “The hair loose, high heels...” Strike smiled at her while she researched online.

“You’d be the prettiest bride even in pyjamas,” he leaned his head on her shoulder and she chuckled at him. “I looked at wedding palettes for New Year’s weddings and I think we’d do cool in dark blue and gold and maybe grey?”

They sat for two hours discussing wedding things and Robin was marvelled at how easy it was. Instead of breaking their minds with things, they planned it as if they were planning a simple party, with laughs and jokes, kisses and excitement, like children. They wanted something formal but easy-going, something that didn’t feel too strict. The guests could sit anywhere they wanted with exceptions for the main table and the children’s table, the ceremony would be relaxed and with some improvisation. The bridesmaids –Ilsa, Lucy, Emma and Lily, Robin’s oldest friend- could dress anyway they wanted, as long as it was formal, and same with the groomsmen –Shanker, Nick, Stephen and Dave- and the children would be involved: Zahara and Aiden would be flower girls and Aiden would also be involved in the ceremony in any other way they could find. Lucy’s sons could, for example, give their guests the little pamphlet with the ceremony guide as they came in.

“We could do a mix between countryside girl and beach boy and put related themes and all...” Robin suggested excitedly, leaning back on the sofa. Planning weddings with Strike was proving to be very fun, just sharing extravagant ideas and seeing how creative they could get.

“Oh, you can come in on a horse!” Strike suggested. Robin grinned, leaning her head on her shoulder. She could be doing this forever.

They designed their own wedding invitations on the spot, at least the digital version. Robin had some talent with Photoshop and Strike had some ideas, so they did the invitations thinking of New Year’s Eve, looking like a sky full of stars and then it said:

‘ _ **You’ve been invited to the**_

_**New Year’s Eve party & Wedding** _

_**Of** _

_**MR. CORMORAN BLUE STRIKE** _

_**&** _

_**MS. ROBIN VENETIA ELLACOTT** _

_**At St. Mawes’ Castle (St. Mawes, Cornwall)** _

_**On December 31** _ _**st** _ _**2013 at 20:00h** _

_**And afterwards also at St. Mawes’ Castle** _ **’**

They excitedly emailed their invitation to everyone on their list along with a petition to RSPV as soon as possible and clearing out details such as dress code, style, asking information about allergies and food intolerances, and the possibility of bringing a plus one. Once the emails were sent, they felt like they had already done something incredible.

The wedding also proved to occupy Robin’s mind enough for the nightmares she had been constantly suffering to go away every now and then or at least transform into something easier to deal with. However, they also started becoming a motive of Strike’s concern, once he learned they hadn’t been happening for the few days he had been home but for weeks since even before the confrontation with Trewin, that now had only worsened them. Strike started waking up with the anguished sounds Robin made in her sleep, and then when she finally woke up he had to run for painkillers because many times her dreams included repetitions of the moment Trewin grabbed her arm and broke it –two bone fractures, to be precise- which brought back the enormous pain. And when neither of them and mostly Robin really slept during the night, grumpiness came in the morning, along with a state of being permanently overemotional. Tears and physical pain with more painkillers just followed.

“You need to see a professional, Robin,” Strike suggested for what felt like the umpteenth time tucking her with a blanket on the sofa after a good dose of painkillers. He made a point on kissing her forehead softly to avoid seeming too harsh for her emotional state of almost delusion.

“I studied psychology too, Corm...” Robin argued.

“You didn’t finish your first year, love, I bet you’ve got some classmate who specialised in helping people with PTSD, uh? It could be good for you...”

“Don’t tell me what to do. You’re not my father.” Strike rolled eyes.

“Right. But I’d like to be your husband.” Strike and Robin exchanged a brief look and Strike left.

Aiden had been doing tummy time and she hated every moment of it, so Strike decided to rescue her from her misery. He found the baby face down on the carpet of the nursery, crying and exactly as he had left her.

“Aiden for God’s sakes, you need to learn to rise your head up and propel up and all of those things baby girl...” Strike sighed pulling the baby into his arms. “What am I going to do with you uh?” he kissed against her temple.

Strike could cry too. Robin being the total opposite from the woman he fell in love with and starting to behave like Charlotte, with her emotions all crazy and out of place and her roughness, Aiden being all stuck in her baby progress and himself with his chest pains and back pains and weakness. It all just felt too much. Strike sighing after taking a deep breath and, patting Aiden’s back, flopped on the rocking chair and closed his eyes. He missed his job terribly, and fathering would’ve been a nice substitute if it wasn’t for his absolute lack of energy.

“All good?” he opened his eyes. Robin was standing by the doorframe looking guilty. Aiden’s crying had relaxed a little.

“Baby hates tummy time. She should be propelling up by now and she isn’t even rolling, Robin, or dragging herself around or nothing,” Strike grumbled.

“Ilsa said it was okay if she hated tummy time, most kids do apparently,” Robin frowned looking at Aiden, and she walked to them and rubbed her back softly. “I wish she could just tell us what to do.” Strike nodded.

“Okay Aiden, you’re going to do tummy time you like it or not because you need to be walking by our wedding, girl,” decidedly, Strike put the baby on the carpet again, sitting next to her.

Robin sighed as Aiden immediately wailed and Strike tried toys, as they had seen in videos, to encourage her to try to move.

“She’s so upset...” Robin lamented sitting down on the floor next to them. She was very tempted to rolling the baby on her back, but she knew Strike was right. They needed to stay firm so she could progress some and learn. However, after five solid minutes of baby crying, screaming, and with a headache the size of a piano, she was done with it. “Look, just pick her up, we’ll take her to the paediatrician.” Strike, also tired, rolled the baby over and shook his keys in front of her eyes until she stopped crying, squealing instead as she moved to try and grab them into her mouth.

Robin looked at Strike. His sullen expression broke with a small side smile as he looked at Aiden. His eyes had big bags underneath, his face tired and his beard unshaven. Strike looked like he could use a hug, so Robin moved to sit beside him, putting her good arm around his shoulders and leaning her head against his shoulder.

“You’re an excellent daddy and fiancé and I’m sorry I haven’t been good to you,” said Robin looking at him apologetically. He nodded and kissed her forehead.

“We’ll pull through.” Whispered Strike. Robin wasn’t sure if he believed his own words, but decided to believe in them anyway.

  
  


  
  



	11. Let's get movin'

**Chapter 11:**

A quick visit to Aiden’s paediatrician –who funnily enough was their friend James- assured them that there was nothing wrong with Aiden and it was perfectly normal for some babies to hate tummy time up into the seventh month. James had proven to be right, since before time came to go to St. Mawes on summer holiday she was not just tolerating tummy time but also rolling and sitting up on her own, propelling herself up and even dragging herself around the floor. Zahara had been a huge help, since she loved Aiden and Aiden was excited enough about playing with Zahara to put all her effort into it.

So Strike, Robin, Aiden, the Ellacotts, the Herberts, and Lucy’s clan all went for a few days relaxing in the beach the minute Ted and Joan let them know it was hot in there. For the Ellacotts, the category of ‘hot’ came sooner than for the southern people, so it was ideal for them.

“I missed you little bug!” Joan grinned grabbing Aiden as they prepared a barbecue in the house’s garden. Aiden squealed as Joan wasted no time in kissing her all over the face. “So she’s already on the run?”

“Oh yeah, dragging herself all over the house. The other day we left her in the hall and ten minutes later she was in the kitchen, no kidding,” Robin grinned proudly at her offspring. She had just gotten her cast off and now she was slowly working it back to be strong, since it was still more a piece of hanging muscle than an actual, useful, strong tool.

“Freaking Ferrari,” Ted laughed as he attended the barbecue.

They were scattered around the green garden, smelling of meat and beach with the birds hanging around to try and catch some, and the leafy trees adorning their views. There was a picnic table around which they seated, with a plaid blue tablecloth, and Robin’s brothers were already out and about exploring the town instead of joining the barbecue. It was their first time there, after all, while Robin’s parents had been there before. Lucy’s boys were running around with a football ball while Lucy fixed her eyes on them every now and then and shouted a warning or two like a sergeant.

“You’ve got such lovely boys, Lucy,” Linda commented looking at Lucy, who smiled. “How’s Greg? He couldn’t come?”

“Oh,” Lucy’s smile vanished. “No, uh, we decided he better stay in London.” Strike frowned.

“What?” Strike asked, standing by the table with a Doom Bar as he helped with the barbecue Ted was preparing. His eyes then noticed the lack of a ring in Lucy’s finger. “Christ, you’re divorcing Greg!”

“Don’t be silly Corm...” Joan then caught Lucy’s expression and she paled. “Dear God Lucy honey is that true?” Lucy nodded.

“No pity treatment please, don’t be so dramatic!” Lucy asked them.

“Girl, you could’ve said something,” Ilsa frowned. “What happened? Oh my God he didn’t...”

“No one cheated, no,” Lucy shrugged and took a swing of her Doom Bar. “We separated four months ago, actually, tried couple counselling... but we just now signed the divorce. We decided I bring the boys here so they can disconnect from this a bit, they’ve suffered a little, understandably...” she didn’t want to look at her brother’s.

“What did he do?” Strike asked. To him, Lucy was the representation of stability, order, things being properly done. She had run away from everything their mother represented.

“He didn’t do anything, come on,” said Lucy. “You know how he is, malice is out of his DNA, no... It was me. I realised I love him, yes, and of course I care as hell for him, and he’s my best friend, but I’m no longer... _in_ love. It had been going on for quite a very long time before I even said anything to him, but then Valentine’s came and he made these super romantic plans and all sweet and I just couldn’t lie anymore, he deserves better... So I told him. It wasn’t even so surprising for him, he wasn’t shocked or anything. He said he had been thinking about it, that I wasn’t so in it anymore... and we’ve agreed staying together for the boys wasn’t going to work, so we decided to try and remain best friends and I moved to the guest room for now and the boys are kinda mad at us but well... I’ll find a place for myself and we have shared custody and we’ll work it out somehow.” She had started rambling without realising, trying not to get emotional as she played with the sticker of her Doom Bar bottle. Strike flopped on the table bench next to Robin.

“So you just wake up one day and no longer want him?” Strike asked, surprised.

“What do you care? You never liked Greg,” Lucy looked at him.

“I care about you, don’t I?” Strike replied, astonished. “You’re the pure representation of stability, with your perfect husband who can’t seem to do something wrong aside from being a super boring weirdo, your magnolia tree and your birthday dinners, excuse me if I don’t gulp this shit easily.” Commented Strike. “You’ve been married for... what, fourteen years? You don’t just divorce like that.”

“Exactly, you go through a year of psychologists and therapy, then two months of marriage counselling, and then a divorce, that is how it works,” Lucy was finally snapping. “Can you please not go all detective on me?”

“It’s just his weird way of caring for you, Luce,” Robin tried to mediate, reaching across the table to hold her hand. “Is there anything we can do for you? You can stay with us if you want, until you find a place.”

“That’s very sweet of you, thanks,” Lucy smiled a little. “I’m okay, like I said, it’s been over a year thinking about this... I just worry about the boys, that’s all.”

“They’ll wrap their heads around it in time,” Ted looked at his niece with concerned eyes. “I think we all wished you would’ve talked to any of us aside from a psychologist for all that long though... you know we’re here right? For anything you need.

“I know Uncle, I just didn’t want to tell anyone until I got it myself,” Lucy shrugged, then looked at Strike. “I’m sorry I snapped.”

“It’s fine,” Strike shrugged. “Hey so Greg was a cool dude then helping out when I was in the hospital despite everything.” Lucy nodded.

“Yeah of course,” she didn’t seem surprised, it was in Greg’s nature after all.

“Excuse me if I’m carving in too much Lucy, but how did you realize after so many years?” Ilsa asked cautiously.

“Well uh...” Lucy blushed. “I don’t know...”

“Oh, you like someone else,” Strike snorted a laugh seeing Lucy redden more. “Who is it? Please tell me he’s less boring...”

“Is it less boring if I tell you is not a he?” Lucy looked up to see his reaction, red to her eyeballs. “It’s a woman. I’m gay.” Ted laughed out loud and Strike looked as if he had been slapped. Robin snorted a laugh.

“For real?” Nick giggled. “That’s great Lucy!” he added seeing her embarrassment.

“Gee for one second I thought you were going to say something bad,” Ilsa patted Lucy’s back.

“Yeah, big deal!” Robin grinned at Lucy. “It’s so great you found out Luce! Now you can be free to live the way you want to.” Lucy smiled sincerely. She didn’t expect such a wave of support.

“So no one’s... bothered?” Lucy asked looking around.

“Oh honey, you’re gay not a drug addict,” Joan grinned reaching to hug her. Aiden squeezed between them with a squeal.

“Yeah, but you’ll have to introduce us to that girl,” Ted smiled, putting the food finally on the table. Linda smiled kindly at Lucy and Michael raised his beer.

“Cheers!” Michael chuckled. Lucy giggled and then looked at Strike, who was yet to say something.

“Is it okay?” Lucy asked her brother, who rolled eyes and smiled.

“Of course it’s okay Luce, like Joan said, as long as you’re not an addict...” Lucy grinned. “Besides, Aiden has three uncles she doesn’t need another!”

“How is she?” Robin asked leaning over the table, curiosity gaining the best of her.

So Lucy told them, excitedly, all about it. Gwen had been an old friend of Lucy’s back when they had lived briefly in a squat in Brighton back when she was twelve, and back then there had been some flirting and when Lucy had gone to say goodbye before leaving Brighton, Gwen had given her first kiss. Then they went on with separate lives, until a bit over a year ago, they met by surprise at a school event. Apparently, Gwen was now a brunette, green-eyed, beautiful cop working for the Met in London. She had lived in Brighton until she left for university to, funnily enough, Oxford, met a woman she ended up marrying and they had a seven-year-old daughter, Alexa. The three of them had lived in Liverpool until Gwen’s wife had died back in 2009 at car crash and Gwen had moved to London looking to start over with Alexa, who was then only three years old, and she had just put Alexa in the same school as Lucy’s sons a month before they had met at the school event, after having moved to a better house and deciding the new school was nearer and better. Lucy had then invited Gwen and Alexa out for ice-cream with the boys, and their old friendship had continued as if it had never stopped, old feelings resurfacing. They had started meeting for coffee quite often, and got closer and closer, the flirting came back, but Lucy felt so guilty she went straight to a psychologist to help her clear her thoughts out. She had confessed her attraction to Gwen, who had helped her clear her mind until it had come a point where Lucy could accept her sexuality and realize what she felt for Gwen was bigger than what she ever felt for a man, including Greg. It wasn’t that she was in love with Gwen –it was too soon for that- but it was about other things. Gwen was more interesting, funnier, made her happier, their relationship worked more effortlessly. Gwen understood better, knew better, and they could talk until three in the morning.

Lucy didn’t care to specify if she was lesbian, bisexual or anything else, she thought finding a label was unimportant, what mattered to her was that she felt something strong for Gwen that wasn’t there for Greg and after so much therapy, psychology and marriage counselling she had come to accept that it wasn’t just a phase, it wasn’t about the excitement of doing something wrong (liking someone else when she was married), that she was truly gay. She should’ve known back when she was twelve, and she told them she probably knew but didn’t want to be weird, she just wanted to be normal like all the other girls and have what it was socially more acceptable for successful women in the 80s: a loving husband, a good house, a good job and children. There was already a Leda to be a disaster or unconventional, Lucy had wanted to be conventional, normal, anodyne, with a stable life without problems.

So she settled down with her high-school sweetheart, confusing feeling of just deep friendship and love (friendly love) with being in-love, married him far too young, moved into a nice place, got a nice job, got perfect children, and was happy that way, until Gwen came knocking it all out.

Lucy told them that now, Gwen was simply a very good friend. Lucy didn’t wish to start anything when her whole life was crumbling down and she needed to get some sense of stability again before caring about dating, and her sons came first. She wasn’t going to tell them the shocking news of ‘mum’s gay’ when they were still getting used to the new situation, although Greg knew and he was supportive and understanding. He just wanted to stick around as a friend once he felt ready, and be a father. He wanted for Lucy to be happy and he could see how happy just talking about Gwen made her. Gwen had also been patient and understanding, and just wanted to be there for Lucy as a friend, until Lucy was ready for more. Gwen had already offered her guest room to Lucy, but Lucy had considered it wasn’t okay to move in with the woman she liked so soon, and would rather live on her own for a while, get a place where her sons could have a room and be comfortable whenever they wanted. Now she shared custody with Greg and they got the boys alternating months to provide more stability, although they did all the meals they could together as a family, and Lucy and Greg were both open to just giving the kids to the other whenever the other wanted to be with them, missed them or wanted to take them somewhere, even if it wasn’t their turn, and wanted for the boys to be wherever they wanted at a time. In short, they had agreed to be super flexible with the turns and no matter what paper said, they were going to let the children be with who they wanted when they wanted. Once Lucy moved out and had a place, she’d make sure the boys had their rooms there and space to be whenever they wanted.

The eventful lunch led to a day in the beach, where Ilsa’s parents joined, and while Nick and Ilsa bathed Zahara and Lucy’s sons ran to the water too, Robin and Strike introduced Aiden to the beach. So far, the baby was flipping, her eyes opened wide as she looked into the ocean, where she right away wanted to be, so Strike lifted her in the air so her feet kicked the water and Robin laughed watching as Aiden squealed and kicked. Then Aiden discovered the joys of sand, rolling in it and throwing down every castle Oliver (Lucy’s youngest son), Zahara and Strike managed to build. They were on it when Ilsa happily announced she was four months pregnant and they celebrated with more beer, except for Ilsa, of course.

“Aiden’s eating sand!” Oliver laughed pointing at his cousin, who would’ve put a whole first of sand into her mouth if Lucy hadn’t quickly slapped her hand at her son’s warning. Aiden looked at Lucy with an offended frown. “Now she hates you mum.”

“Oh, no she doesn’t, you love your aunty Luce don’t you?” Lucy grinned putting the kid into her lap and rubbing the sand away from her hands. “Ah, she’s all covered.”

“Well uh...” Strike shrugged. “We’ll call her crab from now on then.” He chuckled. There was a long pink line in the middle of his chest, but it was already mostly covered with black hair. Aiden was already kicking legs against the sand and trying to steal away Lucy’s sandwich, getting Jack to finally share a bit of his ham.

Ilsa’s mum and Joan, who were old friends, were already chatting away with Michael and Linda, and Zahara was happily taking a nap in her mother’s lap drooling against her shoulder after having exhausted herself in the water. Strike felt perfectly content and happy there, with his favourite people, in the beach, while observing Nick and Robin playing beach tennis with the Ellacott brothers and Emma.

“So this one’s your little one Corm?” Ilsa’s dad chuckled seeing Aiden. “We were dying to meet her, she’s so pretty!”

“She’s 98% Ellacott, that’s why,” Strike joked looking at Aiden, chubbier by day, with big blue-gray eyes full of dark, long eyelashes, sitting between Lucy’s legs on the towel wearing only her bathing diapers and eating a fistful of soft cheese while showing off the same dimples her mum had. The most recognizable Strike feature was a small mane of curly dark hair, lighter than Strike’s, a light brown. It had been Strike’s colour at birth and he had feared for Pubehead 2.0.

“She definitely looks alike,” Ilsa smiled at the child. “I think she’s hungry as hell.”

“Robin breastfeed her like an hour ago, she just has my same appetite, will eat anything as long as there’s food, no kidding,” said Strike, offering Aiden a baby bottle of water so she’d stop eating like a madwoman. “One time she gave herself a stomach-ache, for real. Puked all over... and she weights more than she should, little chubs-chubs.” He pinched Aiden’s belly playfully and she squealed. Then she seemed to notice she had a belly, and forgot about the food she was stealing from Jack.

“Hey Corm is that the castle where the wedding is?” Michael pointed to a castle in the far distance.

“Yeah, we’ll visit it one of these days,” said Strike, nodding as he looked at it.

“How’s the wedding planning going?” Ilsa’s mum asked.

“Pretty well actually,” answered Strike, nursing his third Doom Bar of the day. “Our clothes are in the making, the bookings’ are all done, music’s chosen, the catering is booked and we’re just planning the honeymoon and small things of the ceremony and the tables. We went pretty fast.”

“Indeed, I know no one who took so little in planning a wedding,” Lucy looked nicely surprised.

“The trick is not giving a...” Strike shut himself. “We’re just planning a party, if we happen to marry there is just a plus. No headaches, no bossing people about where to sit and other trivialities, just a party. We could even just go to the council hall any given day and marry, you know? It’s all we care about, not the colour of the curtains or how many shrimps are on the table.”

“Save yourself a headache,” Nick chuckled arriving with Robin and the rest of the gang.

“Who won?” asked Joan.

“Us,” Robin grinned proudly.

  
  


  
  



	12. Parents don't care

**Chapter 12:**

“Where’s Adey?” cooed Lucy covering her face with her hands. “Oh there she is!” she grinned at the baby, that squealed as she tickled her body. “God you’re so cute!” Lucy planted a sound kiss on her cheek.

The main door opened and a voice echoed in the house.

“We’re here!” Strike and Robin appeared in the sitting room. “How was she?”

“Oh come on she never breaks a dish,” Lucy cooed at Aiden, grinning. “You’re so pretty, yes you are! Look, mummy’s here!”

“Where’s my little bird?” Robin grinned leaning to see the baby lied on Lucy’s thighs as she sat on the sofa. Aiden made a sound like ‘ugummm’ stretching trying to reach Robin and she took her into her arms. “Thank you so much for looking after her Luce.”

Strike and Robin had been at a medical check-up and they couldn’t bring Aiden with them, so Lucy had babysat. The soon-to-be Strikes had recently bought a new, modern Land Rover after the old family Land Rover had died, one where they could put Aiden in the backseat, and Strike soon got to it while Robin took their bags for the swimming pool.

“So newborn’s swimming class isn’t it?” Lucy chuckled looking at Aiden as Strike buckled her in her seat.

“Robin thinks it’ll be good for her,” Strike shrugged, leaning to kiss Aiden’s cheek. “Say bye to Auntie!”

“Aww I’ll see you later you precious thing,” Lucy leaned to kiss her niece before Strike closed the door.

“Want us to drop you off somewhere?” Strike asked, standing by the car.

“No, I’ve got the car parked nearby,” Lucy nodded. Then, nervously, she added: “I’m meeting Gwen and Alexa tonight for dinner. Greg and the boys went to see his family.”

“Oh...” Strike nodded, a bit out of his comfort zone. “So it’s a date?”

“I don’t think so, no...”

“So are you so nervous because...?”

“I don’t know,” Lucy shrugged, looking around. Fortunately for her, Robin appeared with the bags, throwing them into the backseat next to Aiden.

“Ready!” Robin looked satisfied. “He had to get new bathing trunks of how skinny he’s gotten, can you believe?” she chuckled at Lucy.

“Unfortunately,” Lucy side smiled. “Well guys, have fun and don’t drown my favourite niece in the world!”

“And your only one,” Strike remarked, giving her a quick kiss on the cheek before getting into the car.

“Thanks for everything Luce, tell me all about tonight later,” Robin hugged her tightly. “Take care!”

“You too!” Lucy waved goodbye and went off to find her own car.

Robin drove the car all the way to the sports centre they had recently become members of while Strike amused Aiden in the back seat, cooing at her, making noises, and putting faces. Robin would watch from the rear-view mirror and giggle every now and then, she still had a hard time believing this was her life and that was the daddy side of her future husband and felt blessed every single day, even more as Aiden’s ‘laughter’ filled the car, rubbing onto them.

The car finally entered the underground parking and once parked, Strike held the child and Robin took the bags, since Strike wasn’t supposed to be carrying weight, but he insisted Aiden was okay.

“We’re going to the pool!” Strike sang looking excitedly at Aiden, who was busy playing with his face, grabbing onto his beard. “So how are we going to do this?” asked Strike as they got into the lift. “I’m not sure the other parents will be comfortable with the view of my stump... maybe I shouldn’t get in the water?”

“I don’t give a shit about what the other parents think,” said Robin, pressing the button of the lift. “You’re not going to miss the first time of your daughter in a pool, we paid, we have the same right as everyone else to be there, and they did say it was better if both parents were there. Besides, your leg will be underwater.”

“I hate the looks...” Strike murmured nervously. Robin turned around and tiptoed to kiss him.

“Don’t listen to them Corm, just look at your girls. We love daddy just the way he is,” a smile creped its way into Strike’s face, smug, and they exited the lift. Robin handed Strike his bag, took Aiden, and they separated to each go into either the men’s or women’s changing rooms.

Using his crutches, Strike exited his changing room ten minutes later and waited for Robin to come in her beautiful bikini, two towels thrown over her shoulder and Aiden in her bathing diapers, against her hip, looking everywhere full of curiosity.

“Ready?” Strike asked after a quick kiss.

“Let’s go!” They exited the changing rooms and entered a huge room with an Olympic pool in one side, a bubbles pool in another and a warm pool not as big as the Olympic one in another side, closer to the doors. It was the same pool Strike used when he went for water physiotherapy.

The teacher, a tall middle aged woman who looked as friendly as a midwife, was already there with a few other parents and their babies, waiting for the rest of the group. Eventually, they left the towels in the benches and they all got into the pool and Strike ignored any looks as, once in the water, he could stabilize himself on his own planting his one foot on the water, that was particularly warm now that it was for the kids, all under three years old. They were happy to see Nick and Ilsa had also come today, with little Zahara, that was already an expert. It was them who had recommended the classes.

During the forty-five minutes of class, they practised helping the babies into basic movements such as kicking, moving their arms, and then they were supposed to help them into small dives, of just an instant time. Strike and Robin exchanged panicked looks and the teacher reassured all the preoccupied parents that it was okay, so apologizing to Aiden beforehand, Strike briefly dipped her head into the water. So briefly, in fact, that once out of the water, Aiden looked at him with wide eyes as if thinking ‘what the hell has just happened?’ The older babies with more classes in their shoulders such as Zahara could even swim a little on their own with the necessary precautions and floating devices.

After the class, they changed back into their clothes and the six agreed to go for an afternoon snack somewhere Ilsa and Nick knew close by.

“That was nice,” Ilsa commented happily as they exited the cars they had just parked outside on the street and walked the small distance to the tea place. Zahara was eating an ice-cream as she walked grabbing the hand of her dad.

“Yeah, much better knowing you were there,” Strike nodded, pushing the baby carriage in which Aiden was sound asleep after all the effort. “You’re such a dolphin Zahara, you swam so well!” he complimented his goddaughter, who smiled and timidly thanked him with the mouth full of chocolate.

“This is so nice for a Friday, just hanging out with friends and well-mannered children,” Robin commented cheerful, walking in her sundress under the sun, that made her hair all shinning. “How’s the pregnancy going Ilsa?”

“Pretty well, we just got an ultrasound done this morning and seems like it’s a healthy child, and I feel great too,” Ilsa beamed, looking five years younger. “Zahara’s been so excited about the baby, right honey?” Zahara nodded. Robin knew the little girl already treated her dolls like little siblings she had to take care of, so she wouldn’t be surprised if she treated her little sibling the same.

They arrived to a small place that led to a hidden, enormous garden in the back surrounded by trees, it was like a little hidden paradise. Strike and Robin both awed, impressed, and they took a round table under the summer sun. Zahara finished her ice-cream and her mother cleaned her face with a wet towel, while the bartender took their orders, tea for Ilsa and Strike, a juice for Zahara, a coffee for Nick and a coke for Robin.

“Fancy some cake, love?” Nick asked Zahara caressing her head. Zahara nodded and thanked her dad again, and Robin smiled looking at them. Zahara was such a good kid, and it always made her happy, after having heard about all the struggle the Herberts had been through to have a child, to see them happy with one and another on the way. No one deserved it more.

“I don’t know how you do it, Zahara’s so good compared to other kids,” Robin commented nonchalantly as their drinks and the cake were lowered onto the table.

“That’s Ilsa’s permanent fear, that Zae will meet some brat in nursery school and start losing her manners,” Nick chuckled at his wife, who rolled eyes.

“There are children out there insulting their parents before they’re even in primary,” Ilsa justified. “And we know kids that never even say ‘thank you’. Our little sunshine is just so smart, and so kind-hearted, I don’t want her contaminated.”

Right on cue, Aiden woke up crying and Strike took her into his arms, patting her back over the little dress Robin had put on her and soothing her with his voice until she fell asleep again against Strike’s chest with her small nose tucked against his neck.

“Daddy Oggy, never thought I’d live to see it,” Nick joked with a smirk. Robin snorted a laugh and smiled at the caring way in which Strike looked down to check Aiden was all good and kissed her hairy hair, where light brown spirals had started to grow.

  
  


  
  



	13. Fishing for attention

**Chapter 13:**

It was near 3 in the morning and the Strikes’ household was in complete silence, save for the rain hitting the windows and Cormoran Strike’s powerful snoring filling the master bedroom, snoring to which Robin and Aiden were both so used it was harder to sleep  _without_ it. Strike was extended on his back in all his hugeness and Robin laid on her good arm, giving him her back and snuggling her face against the pillow. Aiden slept on her crib on the foot of the bed, with a bit of luck, through the night.

It was then that Robin started emitting small noises in her sleep, like a scared puppy, her face filling with struggle, until after a few minutes of agony she woke up with a gasp, breathing heavily as her eyes opened wide and she rolled onto her back to try and catch her breath. The light coming through the window from the moon and the city let her see the contours of the furniture in the room as she sat up in bed, cradling her face between her hands. It had become so common to wake up like that, that it wasn’t even surprising, but it still bothered her deeply. It had been three months. She wanted her sleep back, it was starting to make her feel crazy. Some days she managed a few more hours and could behave more like herself, she had managed roughly seven hours this time, which was pretty good, but other days she could only sleep five or six with an actual rest of three, since when nightmares clouded her dreams she wasn’t resting. Another determining fact in her mood was, of course, having to relieve past traumas painfully realistically every night.

“Again?” Strike’s snoring had stopped without Robin noticing and he had sat up, his big hand massaging her shoulders. Robin hummed for an answer and Strike let a long sigh out of his lips. “Honey, you’ve got to get some treatment for this seriously... when was the last time you got eight hours in a row of uninterrupted rest?” Robin snorted a laugh.

“That has never happened for as long as Aiden’s been alive, to neither of us.” Strike rolled eyes but nodded, conceding.

“You know what I mean...” sweetly, Strike put his arms around her and kissed behind her neck. “I worry about your health, babe...”

“I know, and I appreciate it, but,” Robin sighed, exasperated with herself. “I did psychology, I know it wasn’t even half my degree, but still, and I’ve tried all I know, searched online, searched the books... the methods aren’t working, Corm. And neither do sleeping kills. Time will heal.”

Aiden started fussing in her sleep and Robin got up and massaged her belly in gentle circles, singing a lullaby softly until she was back asleep. Strike let himself fall back on the bed and rubbed his face trying to feel more awake.

“You should try at least,” murmured Strike as Robin went back to bed.

“Hey at least I’m not hooked up on antidepressants,” Robin chuckled kissing him and being done with the topic.

In the morning, Robin was already on a long hour-long phone-call with Lucy when Strike and Aiden woke up, finding her laughing with the phone against her ear and making breakfast. Strike imagined it was about the dinner Lucy had with Gwen the night before, and he stood in his pyjamas with 9-months-old Aiden against his hip, both with a similar sullen, tired expression, both with savage curls, Aiden’s prettier than Strike’s. They contemplated Robin after having received quick morning kisses and then they exchanged glances while Robin chatted away full of enthusiasm.

“Auntie Lucy stole mummy,” Strike murmured looking at Aiden, who looked confused, before they sat down for breakfast.

“So,” Robin, all dressed up, put her mobile back into her pocket, bringing breakfast to the table and giving Aiden an extra kiss. “It’s Ilsa’s birthday today, they’re having a small party tonight with some of their friends and we’re invited and also Lucy will be bringing Gwen, so we’d get to meet her. It’s at that restaurant by the Thames, kids are invited too. The owner is a friend of Nick’s.”

“Nice,” Strike nodded before pushing a big piece of sausage into his mouth. He munched quickly and then added, “Oi, yeah I remember the dude! Had stomach cancer, Nick found out in an ordinary check-up and saved his life, he’s all good nowadays last I knew. Guy’s got three children to live for and has this beautiful restaurant with garden and all, perfect for kids actually.”

“Oh, great!” Robin chuckled, then grimaced. “Ouch! Someone grew a couple new teeth...” she looked down at Aiden, who was casually sucking on her nipple, and Strike snorted a laugh. “Let me see...” Robin moved Aiden’s lips a little to peek. “Ah... yep, four teeth in the upper and two in the lower. Good job!”

“My baby’s got six teeth already?” Strike’s eyes widened, looking at Aiden. “Why does she have to grow?” Robin laughed and didn’t answer.

Since it was a Saturday, they didn’t go to the office that day, opting instead for sitting on the sitting room with Aiden in her diapers, since it was a hot day, and play with her. The little one had started crawling across the floor and now they could sit and play with her toys, playing the classic games of putting the geometrically-shaped objects into the hole that has the same shape.

“Where does the triangle go, Aiden?” spoke Strike softly, making sure to separate the words and pronounce more clearly for her. Aiden looked at him confused, holding the plastic triangle in her mouth. “Why don’t you try, uh? See where it fits?” he guided her hand into each hole until Aiden finally managed to fit the triangle in the right one.

“Bravo!” Robin clapped. Aiden squealed and tried to clap her hands too, making them laugh. “I swear she cracks me up...” pinching the dimpled cheeks, Robin leaned to kiss her soundly on one of them.

“Mmm!” Aiden pointed to the window, where there was a little robin, belly orange and shinning against the sun.

“Oh look at that!” Strike chuckled. “That’s a robin, sweetheart. A bird!”

“Can you say bird Aiden? Bird,” Robin tried. Aiden looked confused for a second and then went back to her toys.

Robin went to take care of some house chores that Strike was medically forbidden to do due to his chest, and left the duo playing. After half an hour she entered the room again and chuckled, seeing Strike lying on the floor fast asleep and Aiden sleeping on his belly, her tiny body rising up and down with Strike’s breathing. Robin, therefore, proceeded to sneak a picture with her phone.

Among the new things that came with parenting was parenting for a  _girl_ . Strike, who was a fervent advocate of not sexualising clothes ‘They’re just  _clothes_ , you should be able to wear the fuck you want regardless of gender!’ was introduced into a world in which Aiden was expected to dress in the way stores determined ‘feminine’. Strike rolled eyes at that, but accepted that dresses did look very cute in Aiden and made the process of diaper changing easier. However, he hadn’t found a way to brush his thick curls in almost thirty-nine years and now Robin expected him to find a way to brush Aiden’s curls, that were thick spirals, way more rebellious than Strike’s, and also in longer hair, which meant bigger spirals. Thankfully, at least she couldn’t be classified as Pubehead like her father.

“Okay Adey, this is teamwork all right?” Strike attempted for the umpteenth time, sitting the baby on her high chair and with the hairbrush brushing a handful of curls and putting a hair band. “There you go... I honestly don’t see how this is supposed to make you look more for a restaurant but OK...”

“What the hell?” Robin blurted out before she could stop herself. “What’s that?” she had entered the room wearing her beautiful Vashti green dress and pointed at the baby, that had up to five super short, tiny ponytails, each holding a small handful of curls, making Aiden look a bit like a cactus. “Oh baby what has your dad done to you?”

“ _You_ said ‘can you put hair accessories on her so she looks more elegant? A ponytail or something’ but! She doesn’t have enough hair for one ponytail so I had to make five micro ponytails...” Robin couldn’t help the enormous guffaw she emitted.

“Oh, Corm!” Robin kissed him on the cheek. “If you see you can’t do a ponytail then don’t, we have headbands! Look...” she rummaged in the small bag of baby accessories and pulled out a gray headband with butterflies drawn on it, removed the numerous ponytails and put the headband instead, which made her little curls fall back beautifully and kept them out of her face. “There, all beautiful!”

“Oh, _that’s_ what you meant...” Strike nodded slowly. “She’s still the prettiest baby in the room without accessories but all right.” Robin smiled scooping Aiden up in her arms. The baby had a little sky blue dress that matched her eyes, and let her mother kiss her cheek.

“Aren’t you lucky that daddy loves you so, Aiden?” Robin cooed, completely fascinated with their little one, who was busy admiring Robin’s hair.

“We are the lucky ones...” Strike chuckled, adjusting his tie before following his favourite girls to the car, grabbing Aiden’s bag on the way. “Are you sure you’re fit for driving? You haven’t rested today.” He added observing the long scar across Robin’s left bicep, matching the one in her right forearm done by Laing, as she put Aiden into her seat.

“I’m fine, Corm,” said Robin kissing the baby before closing the door, not without making sure she was well-entertained with her fluffy elephant.

“Please let me drive,” said Strike anyway, offering a hand for the keys. To Robin’s look of disbelief, he insisted. “Robin, this is _London_ , not Masham. Is night time, visibility’s shit, there’s a lot of traffic and there’s a baby on board. I don’t feel comfortable letting you drive today love, you’ve barely slept.”

“Oh so we’re supposed to trust you driving without a leg? Not to mention on the way back, when you’ve drank a few Doom Bar,” she said the comment without thinking. Robin was, in truth, tired, and after a whole day doing house chores mostly without help due to Strike’s injury, having a baby bite into her nipples with her six teeth and without having rested properly in three months, she was starting to feel moody. It happened sometimes, there were good days and days in which Strike had to resist the urge to shout at her rudeness and roughness. Robin knew she had fucked up right away, when she saw Strike’s kind expression turn into cold and expressionless. “Shit I’m so sorry Corm, I didn’t mean...”

  
  


  
  



	14. We will marry

**Chapter 14:**

“We’ll grab a taxi then,” said Strike robotically, unable to look at her, opening the car door again to get the baby.

“No, please Corm you’re right, you should drive, you’ve always been an excellent, competent driver and it’s true I’m tired, I wasn’t thinking clearly,” Robin hurried to say, pulling the car keys from her pocket and handing them to Strike. “Please Corm, I’m so sorry, you take the keys. Besides, you know the streets of London way better than I do, you’re an expert driver...” she tried, feeling guilty as fuck, with a conciliatory smile as Strike turned around. He didn’t meet his eyes as he grabbed the keys and wordlessly went to sit in the front seat, calming himself on the way there. He needed a clear mind to drive, couldn’t do it thinking of punching Robin.

Robin, feeling the tension emanating from him, sat behind him next to Aiden, who was in the middle seat in the back, the safest seat for a child because if another car hit you on the side and sunk the doors into the car, the child wouldn’t be squashed by them, nor receive the first of the impact. Robin tried to make conversation the entire way, and filled the trip with apologizes, but Strike seemed to have zoomed out from her, focusing entirely on the road, his expression of sullen crossness tight in his face. Not even Aiden’s squeals in the back could break it. Eventually, Robin just shut up, hating herself and feeling like she deserved everything, and sat trying not to make a noise nor bother in the slightest. She was also feeling bad it was Ilsa’s birthday and she didn’t want their problems to affect Ilsa, besides, it was the night they’d meet Gwen and poor thing didn’t deserve to get Strike in his bad mood.

So once Strike parked and shut down the engine, Robin felt they couldn’t leave the car without fixing the situation.

“Cormoran, I am so, so sorry about what I said. I shouldn’t have been so rough with you and I shouldn’t have said what’s nothing more than utter bullshit in which I don’t believe at all,” said Robin softly. “I know you’re more than qualified to drive with or without a baby on board, I know in my heart you’re one of the best drivers there are and so trustworthy because you’re such a demanding passenger too, so you provide the best driving. I’m sorry I picked you on your leg, and I’m sorry I implied you were going to drive drunk when I know full well you’d never do that, I don’t know why I said that but I didn’t mean it, love. Hey,” Robin tried her luck by reaching a hand and caressing his shoulder, that instead of relaxing under her touch as usual, just tensed up more. “Corm, we need to talk about this before we go in there, love. Listen... I really feel bad about what I’ve said, I beg you to forgive me... It won’t happen again.”

“Only that it keeps happening,” said Strike, finally, in a low voice. “How many times in these three months have you been unnecessarily bitchy, rough or rude with me, even as I’m recovering from being fucking shot? Apologizing, promising it won’t happen again? With your mood swings, never knowing how am I going to catch you in a certain moment, your snapping, your comments... there are moments Robin, in which you’re harder to stand than Charlotte, and I’m just being honest, not trying to hurt you. You play me the fuck you like, that’s what you do, and I’m not going to marry you like this Robin.” Robin’s eyes widened. Were they going to break up now? Strike’s voice trembled as he continued, appreciating that he didn’t have to face Robin. “Either you go to therapy first thing in the morning on Monday, or I will break up with you, Robin. I love you, but I’m not okay to stand this and I can’t deal with these levels of stress, worry and anxiety. I can’t, okay? I can’t, my doctor was strongly against it so I haven’t even worked in three months, I’ve been taking extra care of myself, and I won’t suffer a stroke because of this, not when I have a daughter to care for. If you don’t want to get the help you obviously need, I will leave and I will make sure you lose Aiden’s custody, I mean it. I don’t trust you alone with our child, not like this, and I won’t jeopardize her life, I’m not playing with her well-being. So make a choice.”

Robin felt herself fill with anxiety, worry and anger, and she opened the window to get some air, taking a deep breath and gulping the huge knot that had formed in her throat.

“Would you really take Aiden away from me?” she asked with a small, trembling voice. Strike removed his seat-belt and turned around in his seat to face her, his eyes wide and glassy. She could tell he was angry.

“Listen to me Robin,” said Strike, and pointed at Aiden, who thankfully, had fallen asleep. “That is our daughter and I love her more than life. I would die for Aiden, do you hear me? Anything, I’d do anything for her, I’d climb the Everest in one leg for her, whatever it took. I took a bullet for her and for you, and I’d do it all again. There is nothing I wouldn’t do to protect her and keep her safe and happy, including making sure she never sees you in the rest of your life. I hope that’s clear.” His voice sounded raspy and hoarse with emotion and she could tell he didn’t like himself much either in the moment. “In your current state you’re a danger to yourself and to everyone else around you, Robin, don’t you understand? I’m in love with you, you’re my fiancée, and I’m worried sick about you! There is nothing I wouldn’t do for you either, including taking away your daughter if that makes you go and get help and be okay, because this is seriously fucking up your mental and physical health and I won’t look at Aiden’s eyes and say I didn’t try all my cards to help her mum. I’m not just thinking of what’s best for Adey or me, I’m thinking of what it’s best for you too, honey.”

Robin nodded, looking down.

“I’m so sorry, you’re right, I’ll find one tomorrow and go first thing on Monday, I promise...” said Robin, unable to hide the fact that she was silently crying. She hated herself, how they had gotten to this situation, how careless she had been with herself and her family, mistreating them.

“Hey,” said Strike softly. “Don’t cry, your eyes will swell, love. Come here...” Strike got out of the car in the parking lot and closed his door before opening Robin, pulling her out gently with his hands pulling from hers and then pulling her into his arms for a tight hug.

“I’m sorry...” Robin sobbed out. “I feel like shit, I do...” she breathed heavily into his suit and sniffled, blubbering.

“I know, and we’re going to help you feel better okay? I promise you,” Strike kissed her head, cupping it with one big hand and using the other to rub her back up and down. “We all have bad times sometimes, is fine.”

“I don’t want you to think I don’t love you and Adey,” Robin blurted out pulling apart and looking at Strike, her face all swollen and her mascara ruined. Strike frowned and shook his head.

“Robin I would never think such things,” he assured her. “I know you’re just hurting, that’s all there is.” He leaned to kiss her softly.

“Will you please marry me?” Robin sobbed out after the kiss, rubbing her raccoon eyes.

“Of course I will marry you, silly,” Strike smiled. “You take care of yourself and we’ll get the best wedding in the world. I love you so much, uh? So much.” Robin smiled a little and nodded.

“I’m going to get better,” Robin assured, nodding. “I’ll care for myself.”

“That’s my wife,” Strike chuckled, kissing her again. Robin kissed him back, and it tasted of salt and tears and lipstick, reminding Strike they were supposed to show up at a party, and making him pull apart. “Want a moment to compose yourself and fix your make-up?” Robin nodded and got in the front seat to fix her make-up using the small mirror in the visor and the light from the car ceiling.

Twenty minutes later, Robin looked great again, although her eyes were still a bit swollen and glassy, but she smiled sincerely as she walked arm in arm with Strike, feeling like an enormous weight had left her chest. Strike pushed Aiden’s carriage with one hand and the baby slept away. At one point, as they approached the door, Robin snorted a laugh.

“So much headache to fix Adey’s hair and now she’s going to be asleep the whole time.” Strike laughed too, nodding, and stopped to give Robin an intense kiss before entering the restaurant. He, too, felt like a huge weight had lifted his chest.

  
  


  
  



	15. Learning to party

**Chapter 15:**

The party was full of nice people, more lawyers than were ever in one same room at the same time, and children’s laughter as they ran around. Robin soon made conversation with some of Ilsa’s friends, Strike bragged about his daughter’s crawling abilities to some other parents, and then after a little bit, Lucy and Gwen came in. Gwen was taller than Lucy, and absolutely stunning, Strike had to recognize Lucy had brilliant taste in women, if it had faltered with men. She looked fit, had long, wavy brown hair, intense green eyes, and was wearing a navy blue dress that made her body shine. Lucy next to her looked happier than Strike had ever seen her with Greg, her blonde hair falling effortlessly beautiful and her short body fitted in a violet dress.

“This is my brother Cormoran,” Lucy introduced them pointing at Strike. Gwen smiled warmly at him and shook his hand.

“Very nice to finally meet you, although I do remember having seen you around in school,” Gwen commented. “Lucy talks very nicely of you.”

“Oh really?” Strike smiled pleased. “She does talk great of you too. Cop, aren’t you? What division?”

“Gangs and organised crime,” Gwen answered with a nod. Strike’s eyebrows raised, surprised.

“That’s impressive,” Strike recognised. Lucy smiled, pleased, and Robin came around holding Aiden. “Oh, this is my fiancée, Robin, and our daughter Aiden, who apparently just woke up from her nap?”

“Indeed,” Robin smiled bouncing a very sleepy child against her hip. “Hi, you must be Gwen,” she shook Gwen’s hand and then hugged Lucy, who caressed Aiden’s cheek. “How are you?”

“I’m great, thanks! What a cutie, Luce’s always speaking nicely of Aiden,” Gwen chuckled at Aiden, who yawned big against Robin’s neck and closed her eyes.

“She does gangs and organised crime,” Strike told Robin, who widened eyes.

“That’s badass, girl!” Gwen laughed.

“Well, you guys also do very cool things, Luce told me,” Gwen smiled lovingly at Lucy, locking arms.

“You should’ve brought Lexie, look how many kids...!” Lucy commented. “Oh there’s the birthday girl! Forty’s a charm, isn’t it?” she grinned hugging Ilsa, who had just come to welcome them.

“I’m rocking them!” Ilsa chuckled, “And you must be Gwen, how nice to finally meet you! Want a drink? There’s champagne and everything, all paid, just grab what you like.”

“Oh nice,” Gwen chuckled. “Well happy birthday Ilsa, I actually got you a little something...” Gwen rummaged in her pocket and pulled a drawing, giving it to Ilsa. “My daughter Alexa made it for you.” She added smiling. Ilsa awed looking at the drawing, that in big letters said ‘HAPPY BIRTHDAY ILSA!’ there was a little brunette girl drawn underneath beside the signature.

“Oi she’s so sweet! Nick, baby look at this!” Ilsa beamed.

The dinner went great, the party was fun, and before it got too late, having in count that there were children, they all left back home. Strike, who hadn’t drank more than water and juice all night, drove the family home while Robin made sure Aiden would fall asleep in her seat. Once home, Robin put the child into her crib and they changed into their pyjamas before getting under their duvet. Once there, they stared into the ceiling, hands intertwined between them.

“That was fun,” Strike commented, closing his eyes and turning his head to kiss Robin’s shoulder. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” Robin smiled bringing a hand to caress his chin. Suddenly a thought popped into her mind. “When was the last time we had sex?”

“Uh...” Strike had a hard time remembering. “Valentine’s? I don’t know...”

“Jesus Christ,” Robin sighed. “First the two months dry until I felt ready after Aiden, and now thanks to Trewin, since at least April like, at least! Because we must’ve done _something_ in March, I mean...”

“Yeah,” Strike opened his eyes. “Woah that’s a very long time. Wanna...?” Robin snorted a laugh.

“Do you really feel like it? Because my arm is a bit stiff and I’m absolutely drained, in general...”

“Thank God,” Strike laughed. “The idea of doing any exercise right now gives me chills.” Robin laughed along and squeezed his hand.

“Goodnight handsome.”

“Goodnight little bird.”

  
  


**. . .**

The first few days of therapy were challenging, to say the least. If doctors were the worst patients, psychology students were the worst nightmare of an actual psychologist, and at first it felt more frustrating and infuriating than nothing else. However, Strike appreciated Robin’s efforts greatly, and made sure she knew, by being extra loving, extra attentive, extra caring, and cooking for her or rubbing her feet. He even joined a few sessions, under the psychotherapist’s recommendation, and slowly but steadily, they worked their way upwards. By the time September arrived and Aiden started walking, their sex drive came back, as did Strike’s energy to work and he was cleared out to carry some weights, and it all considerably improved their days, as Robin wasn’t the only one going to work or the only one doing the heavy house chores, which freed Robin from sources of stress and anxiety and helped her mental health, not to mention being able to make love often improved their mood generously.

Aiden’s first words came one night at the end of September, as Strike and Robin were having dinner with Lucy, Gwen, Alexa and the boys, and Aiden had been on the run around the dining room, crawling and walking supporting herself on furniture. Strike and Robin had obviously been keeping an eye on the girl, but they hadn’t been fast enough to prevent Aiden from falling face first, miraculously not breaking anything but crying hard as she lied on the floor. And then it had happened.

“Dada, mama!” she had shouted while wailing dramatically. Strike and Robin had ran to her and delighted, almost cried too, covering her in kisses. Ever since, the words were usually shouted around, as Aiden had quickly picked up that it was the perfect way of getting attention without having to cry.

Aiden’s first birthday came before they were truly conscious that it had really been an entire year from the happiest day of their lives so far. The family came to celebrate and they had a nice party in their garden that reminded Strike of his nephews’ birthday parties, full of little kids running around. The garden filled Aiden with joy, since she could walk and fall all she wanted without seriously hurting herself, but nothing compared with the joy of putting her feet on her father’s feet and holding his hands as he walked her around.

  
  


  
  



	16. Epilogue

**Chapter 16: Epilogue.**

“Daddy, look what I made!” seven-year-old Aiden Leda Strike ran to her father’s inner office holding a big painting of their house, nicely drawn by the young fingers. Strike smiled, holding the drawing and passing a hand through his curly, dark hair, that now had some gray hairs in between. He contemplated the drawing attentively as he sat back in his chair.

“That’s beautiful love,” Strike complimented her, grinning at her. Aiden was her mother’s spitting image, only that her hair was darker, a light brown with strawberry-blonde shines every now and then, when the sun hit her for a long time in the summer. She had Leda’s heart-shaped face with big chubby cheeks and dimples, and a prettier version of her father’s curls, and was already one of the tallest girls of her glass and particularly observant and brilliant, already imitating her father’s Latin quoting. “Put it safely in your backpack and remind me to hang it when we get home, all right? We’ll put it in The Wall.” The Wall was a wall of their sitting room destined solely to children’s master pieces, and it always brought their parents a smile.

“What are you looking at?” Aiden asked, peeking at her father’s current case. Strike had a photograph of a room in which someone had been murdered –didn’t show anything a kid couldn’t see though- in front of him.

“Well a man was killed here and I think his lover did it, but I can’t find anything here that proves she was there...”

“What about that?” Aiden pointed to a nail-polish bottle on a bookshelf. “It’s the same colour as this.” She then pointed to another of the pictures scattered over the desk, that was of a woman with painted nails. Strike’s eyes widened and he grinned at Aiden.

“Blimey, that was good!” he complimented. “Thanks honey, you’re amazing, high five!” Aiden beamed crashing her small hand against his much bigger one.

“Another case closed by the Strikes,” she commented. Strike laughed and nodded.

“Soon you’ll be substituting me, daddy’s getting old.”

Later, as he walked into the kitchen to start dinner, he passed by a picture of a grinning Robin holding in her arms two little baby-boys with blonde hair as Strike, Nick and Ilsa beamed next to them. Next to that picture, in the same shelf of the bookshelf, there was a giant picture of Strike and Robin, she in a beautiful wedding dress and Strike all handsome in his tuxedo with his dark blue bowtie and vest, holding a pretty Aiden in a small white dress. Next to them were Nick and Ilsa, both extremely elegant, Nick holding 2-year-old Zahara and Ilsa holding their weeks-old identical twins, Zachary and Henry Blue. Lucy posed with her boys, Gwen and Alexa in the other side, all beaming. The only other picture in the same shelf was another framed one but much smaller than the others, just showing four-year-old Aiden with a little baby in her lap, kissing its chubby cheek, the head covered in curly dark hair, all fat and round shaped.

Strike cooked helped by Aiden for solid half an hour until the door opened again and a three year old boy came running and was quickly intercepted by Strike, who scooped him up.

“I want kisses!” Strike demanded. The boy smiled and wiggled, kissing him on the cheek.

“Hi daddy!”

“Hello, son, had fun tailing with mummy?” Noah Theodore Strike had been the only one of their two children that was perfectly planned, after several years of marriage and with Aiden being a more independent little girl. He had Strike’s round face, the same eyes as Leda’s marmoset ones, and the same hair that his sister had. But he was his mother in personality. The boy nodded trying to grab food directly from the pan and Strike put him back on the floor. Both of his children had, of course, striking stomachs.

“Where’s my beautiful family?” Robin grinned entering the room. If forty-five years were more than noticeable in Strike, thirty-five fit Robin tremendously well in Strike’s eyes and she looked, to him, even prettier than at twenty-five, and curvier. She crutched to catch Aiden and Noah running to hug her and scooped them both up in her arms, kissing them as she walked to Strike, who observed happily. “Hello, Mr. Strike.”

“Hey ya, Mrs. Strike,” Strike kissed her sweetly. “Had fun?”

“Tons, you’re going to love it,” Robin winked. “How about you and our little warrior?”

“I received clients and helped daddy find a bad woman,” Aiden announced happily. Robin’s eyebrows raised in surprise and admiration.

“What she said,” Strike looked proudly.

“Oh someone’s getting ice-cream tonight!” Robin beamed kissing Aiden again.

“Me!” Noah raised his hand and Robin and Strike chuckled.

“You too, but first, you two head to wash your hands!” Strike ordered.

“I’ll help Noah!” Aiden offered, taking her brother’s hand as Robin left them on the floor. Strike and Robin had been perfectly happy with just one kid, but then Aiden had wanted a baby brother, seeing how Zahara was with her baby brothers, and Strike had never been able to say no to the girl that had him wrapped around her finger from day one.

Now, as Strike and Robin hugged and kissed again, turning to contemplate how good Aiden was to Noah and how he clung to her and admired her, they couldn’t be happier with the family they had grown and the lives they had built.

In a corner, Cáspita, the black cat the children had managed to force them to adopt after having been left as a baby in their garden, stirred and followed the children with a purr.

The end


End file.
